


Divine Interventions

by Alixtii



Series: Watcher!verse [16]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bechdel Fix, Bechdel Pass, Character of Color, Dark!Willow, Female Protagonist, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Multiple Pairings, Novella, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Plot, Sao Paulo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-08-29
Updated: 2005-10-01
Packaged: 2017-10-03 06:08:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 33,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alixtii/pseuds/Alixtii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Unlikely allies must team up to protect Willow from a resurrected enemy and the worshippers of the god Osiris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. with Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to **spikeNdru** for a great beta.  
> **Timeline/Spoilers:** Takes place after "Why We Fight." Spoilers up to "You're Welcome."

**Prologue**

Even the most novice witch or warlock knows the Laws of Making. After all, there are only two, and they are easy to memorize. The first is, simply, that anything which has been made can be unmade. The second is that anything which has been unmade can be made again.

Knowing the words is easy. Understanding them is not so simple; even the most advanced mages know that the Laws of Making are not to be used lightly. They are a primordial truth; a description of the underlying state of the universe. They are not something to be manipulated to man’s will.

But they can be, if the one who desires to do so is powerful enough. To remake some things—for example, a human soul which has become consumed in the Fires of Resurrection—is beyond the ability of many gods and most Powers. Those who could perform the deed would not. But it is still possible.

The recreation of a single artifact, lifeless, is far simpler. Especially when one is the High Priestess of the god after whom it is named.

  


> _From the ashes a fire shall be woken  
> A light from the shadows shall spring  
> Renewed be the Urn that was broken  
> The crownless again shall be King._

  


Alexia had to smile as she recited the words. Who would have guessed actual spells would have been found in Tolkien? She watched as a wind began to pick up around her, a miniature sandstorm forming from the sand of the desert, the sand of the beach, and the sand of the crater. And at the heart of sandstorm, a pottery vase began to form. Soon the storm was gone, leaving the urn on the ground in front of her.

Alexia approached it, taking a vial of hart’s blood from a pocket in her blouse, pouring its contents into the urn. “Osiris, keeper of the gate,” she began to recite, “master of all fate, hear me. Before time, and after. Before knowing and nothing. Accept our offering. Know our prayer.”

As she spoke the words, she was tested. Gashes cut open across her body, blood streaming from her veins. This was what the god demanded of her; she would not fail Him.

“Osiris! Here lies the warrior of dark magicks! Let him cross over.”

Alexia began to feel a lump in her throat. What was this? Aghast, she watched as a serpent crawled out of her mouth. She let it fall onto the sandy ground, and continued to invoke the god.

“Osiris, let him cross over! Osiris, release him!”

Again, there was a wind, blowing around her at gale forces, even stronger than before. She raised her arms to the level of her eyes, trying to shield herself from the sandstorm. Once again, the sand of the desert, the sand of the beach, and the sand of the crater combined to form—

A man. And, oddly enough, his clothing.

The man looked at Alexia, uncertain. “Do you know who you are?” Alexia asked him.

The man nodded, slowly.

“Do you remember how you died?”

The man nodded again. “_She_ killed me.”

Alexia smiled. “Yes, that’s right. And she’s the reason we brought you back. We want you to take her down.”

The man simply stared at Alexia for a long moment, and then a smile began to spread across his features. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had strawberries,” he said. “I’ve missed that taste.”

 

**Chapter One**

Cordelia Chase climbed the steps of the temple, wondering why she was even bothering to do this. Of course, it wasn’t a real temple, just the mental recreation of one on the Otherworld, formed for her benefit.

Why was she doing this? For the girl who just had to steal Cordy’s boyfriend _before_ she realized she was gay?

Cordelia looked around inside the temple. It was certainly spacious. And empty. “Um, hello?” she asked nervously.  
__  
_I am here, child._

Cordy started. “Greetings, O Great and Powerful Goddess,” she ventured. Hecate, after all, was a goddess, while Cordelia was only a mere Higher Power. No mater how high you got on the totem pole, there was still someone sitting on top of you.

_It has been a long time since one of the Powers has come here. Longer still since they have shown the proper respect to their Elders._

Did that mean the “O Great and Powerful” stuff was working?

_No. It doesn’t._

Right. Goddess. All-knowing and all that.

_What do you want, Cordelia Chase?_

“Well, you see, I have a friend. Or had one, when I was human. Her name’s Willow, and—“

_I am aware of the witch Willow Rosenberg._

Right. Still all-knowing.

_She has been brought to My attention. We have had Our eyes on her for a while now._

“Well, they’re trying to kill her.”

_They, My child? Have not creatures been trying to kill the Rosenberg child for years? Did she _ _not live on a Hellmouth?_

“The Order of Osiris.”

_Yes, I know. Osiris has been angered by the girl. Now He fears her. You wish Me to intervene?_

“Only to counteract Osiris’s interference, Your, erm, Worship.”

_You wish to be sent to Earth._

“Willow was my friend. Sort of. I need to help her.”

_It can be done. But remember, you will have to sacrifice much of your power as a Higher Power to do it. No one, not even I, can interfere with the free will of a human being._

“I don’t ask it. Only to stop Osiris.”

_Then My will be done._

 * * * * *

“Who’s the hot babe?” asked Ethan.

Beth Daniels was, as usual, hunched over the blacktop of the prison yard, several colored sticks of chalk in his hand. His latest artistic creation Ethan found especially impressive: a young but mature woman, slender but curved, her hair a dark brown color. She was dressed in a blue blouse and a black skirt with white boots, and on her finger was a gold ring. Ethan was almost half-tempted to straddle the chalk portrait and make love to _it. _After all, it _was_ the closest thing to a female he had seen in months.

“I don’t know,” Beth answered as he added a few more strokes to the girl’s waist, adding even more to the three-dimensional quality of the drawing. Just from looking at the picture, one would never have guessed that Beth was blind, had never actually seen a woman with his own eyes.

Beth Daniels was, as near as Ethan could tell, sixteen or seventeen years old. What the boy had done to land himself in the detention center was a mystery to everyone, although Ethan secretly thought that the kid had probably used black magic to kill his parents in revenge for their naming him Beth. _A boy named Sue, indeed. . . . _

“She’s yours.”

“Mine?” asked Ethan. “My past, or my future?”

“Both,” answered Beth.

“I think I’d remember a girl who looked like that,” Ethan observed.

Beth just kept on drawing. “She was younger then, of course,” he said. “This is what she looks like now.”

“So when do I get to meet her?”

The boy paused for a moment, then began to count backwards. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one . . .”

“Rayne!” cried out one of the guards. “Get over here. You have a visitor!”

Ethan looked from the guard to Beth, then back to the guard, and began to approach the guard.

There was only one type of visitors one received in this type of detention facility—Initiative interrogators. And Ethan was bloody sure they didn’t hire anyone that young, or that hot.

“Don’t screw this up, Ethan,” Beth said.

Ethan shrugged and followed the guard into the heart of the facility. The guard led him into a small room, empty except for two chairs, then left. Ethan sat down on one of the chairs, and waited. It was a moment more until the girl from Beth’s portrait did indeed enter. She was dressed just as he had sketched her—the blue floral blouse, the black skirt, the gold ring. Up close, in real life, Ethan could make out smaller details than he could in Beth’s drawing. For example, he could see the exact nature of the girl’s ring—it was fashioned in the design of a snake consuming its own tail.

A Ring of Ouroboros. Which meant she was a Watcher. Not all Watchers wore the ring, of course. But no one did who was not associated with the Council in some way.

“The Council finally found some interest in me again?” Ethan asked, playfully.

The girl simply examined him as she sat down. In her hands, she held several pieces of parchment.

“The Council as you knew it no longer exists,” she said, simply, in an American accent. “I am a representative of the organization which has taken its place, but I must admit that as far as that organization is concerned, they are quite happy with you rotting away where you are.”

Ethan nodded, wondering who this young representative from the new Council could be. She seemed to be much too young for a Watcher—hardly old enough to be graduated from high school, yet alone have defended a Watcher’s thesis. Could she be a Slayer? Beth—being so closely attuned to the currents of good and evil, chaos and order—had explained to him how it was that now every girl who could have been a Slayer, _was_ a Slayer. It was not beyond imagining that in the restructuring of the council that would ensue, some Slayers would be given Rings of Ouroboros. Although he had difficulty imagining Quentin Travers or Roger Wyndam-Pryce agreeing to it.

“Have I met you?” Ethan asked the girl. After all, according to Beth, he had.

“No,” said the girl. “But you remember me anyway.”

Ethan had to cock an eye at this unexpected turn. “Really?”

The girl nodded. “Really. Sunnydale, 1997. Hallowe’en. My sister and her best friends were going costume shopping, and my mother made them take me along. We bought our costumes at your costume shop.”

“Really,” said Ethan. Wasn’t that interesting? “Could I ask what costumes you purchased?”

“My sister was a princess. Her one friend was a hooker—although they seemed to think I was too young to find out what that was and kept referring to it by the most romanticized euphemisims. The other, a soldier—a fact which ultimately proved somewhat useful. I suppose we should thank you.”

Everything fell into place. He never met her, but he remembered her anyway. Of course. “You’re her. The Slayer’s sister. The Key.”

The girl sighed. “Neither identity being one I happen to be incredibly fond of. How about just plain Dawn Summers?”

“Of course, Miss Summers. As I remember, your costume was that of Alice Pleasance Liddell.”

Dawn nodded. “I complained that my hair was the wrong color, but you pointed out that the historical Alice Liddell _was_ a brunette. And when the spell was finally broken, it made it all the easier for me to rationalize everything as having been a very, _very_ weird dream. Although the British accent persisted for days.”

“I assumed you have not come here to reminisce?”

“No,” said Dawn, and handed him the parchments. “I have here pages of the Tredescan Codex. They are written in Etruscan, Sumerian, and Egyptian. Loosely translated, they give an account of the end-times. For the most part, they’re your standard fire-and-brimstone stuff.”

“You know Etruscan, Sumerian, and Egyptian?”

“Among other languages,” Dawn agreed. “You should hear my Italian accent. What interests me in these pages is what seems to be references to a friend of mine—the girl who dressed as the prostitute.”

“Willow Rosenberg. The witch.”

“You _do_ remember. These references seem to be constantly associated with some type of ritual known only as the Rite of Isis. However, when I asked Giles—“

“How is old Ripper these days?”

Dawn ignored him and continued. “However, when I asked Giles, he said there was only one living person known to have knowledge of the details of the Rite of Isis, and that he wouldn’t be able to help me.”

“And from that, you guessed it was me?”

“I did a little more research,” Dawn corrected. “Then I _knew _it was you.”

“Well, haven’t you done your homework. Now what do you want from me?”

Dawn stared him straight in the face. “Tell me what the Rite of Isis does.”

“And what do I get out of it?”

“Even if I wanted you free, the military would never be persuaded to allow it. It was difficult enough for me to procure an interview.”

“Then you don’t really have anything to bargain with, do you?” asked Ethan. “I’ve been on my best behavior here. Just ask anyone. I have the benefit of every privilege prisoners are allowed to enjoy.”

“Then you won’t help me?”

“I didn’t say that.” He paused, thinking. “You are aware that I worship chaos, I suppose?”

Dawn nodded. “In particular, the god Janus—an Etruscan god with two faces, one young and one old, one looking forward and one behind. He was later appropriated by the Romans, who named the month of January after Him. The gates to His temple were closed only in times of peace.”

Ethan had to smile at the girl’s precision. What was she, an encyclopedia? “Which in ancient Rome, was exceedingly rare. You learned all of this along with the languages?”

“Most of it,” said Dawn. “My sister’s boyfriend sort of knows a lot of Roman history. I learned some of it from him. He’s cool like that. And hot.”

“Then the Slayer must be a lucky girl,” observed Ethan. “But that’s really neither here nor there, is it? What matters is that Janus has taken a liking to your little witch friend. After all, whether intentionally or unintentionally, chaos usually manages to follow in her wake. And so He would be very sad if something unfortunate were to befall your friend. And I would have to say that the Rite of Isis would be something quite unfortunate indeed.”

“What is it?”

“Aye, there’s the rub, isn’t it? I wish I knew, exactly. Just trust me when I say you don’t want it happening.”

“You performed it once.”

“Indeed. And it was such a powerful experience, it wiped my mind completely clean. Permanent amnesia. I don’t remember a thing. Rather guess that’s what your friend Rupert meant by my not being able to help. Though I don’t blame you for wanting to find out for yourself.”

“Then you can’t help me.”

“Well, I would guess that would depend on the sort of help you want. But if you mean telling you what the Rite is, no, I’m afraid that I cannot do. Not even if I wanted to. Sorry.”

Dawn nodded. “Well, thank you for your help, Mr. Rayne,” she said, extending her hand. Ethan shook it, politely. Then she left.

Only after he had managed to make his way back to the prison yard did Ethan unclench his fist and look at the small crystal that Dawn Summers had had palmed in her hand.


	2. Chapter 2

Amy Madison didn’t know the proper way to address a Higher Being. Even for a Wiccan as powerful as she was, it had never been necessary. She _certainly _didn’t know how to address a Higher Being who had just happened to pick on her through twelve years of public schooling.

_Damn it all_, she thought to herself. _There’s no way I’m going to be all reverential to fucking Cordelia Chase._ And with that decided, she opened the door and entered the UCLA dorm room. “Hey, Cordelia,” she said. “I love what you’ve done with your hair.” Where did _that_ come from? Oh, well. She had to admit, Cordelia’s new ‘do was looking pretty good.

“Isn’t it great?” asked Cordelia with a smile. “Benefit of being a Higher Power. Of course, they didn’t tell me what I’d have to go through to earn it. Namely having my body hijacked by a renegade Power and used to give birth to itself.”

Amy sat on the bed next to her. “Right. I suppose that’s worse than spending three years as a rodent.”

“Don’t suppose you came up to get me to compare ‘my life sucks’ notes. It time?”

Amy nodded. “Might as well get it over with, right?”

Cordelia got off the bed. “Might as well.”

Amy led Cordelia out of the dorm room, down to the lobby on the ground floor where twelve other girls were waiting. “Girls, this is Cordelia Chase. Cordelia, meet the former UC Sunnydale Wicca group. Or, as UCLA students delight in calling us, the ‘Sunnydale freaks.’” All twelve girls had been transferred to the Los Angeles campus of the University of California system after Sunnydale’s campus had been destroyed. Amy moved with them. Hell, she even decided to enroll.

“As you may or may not be aware,” Cordelia began to explain, “I am a Higher Power. I trust you know what that it is?” Eleven girls nodded in unison. Only Vaughne, the elected leader of the group, stood to the side, watching. “What that means is upstairs I am a being of incredible power who can’t use it to do a damned thing. Down here I get to get my hands dirty, but I have to leave the big guns behind. End result, I’m pretty much a normal girl with seven thousand years of history crammed into my skull. And since I’m already dead, I keep on coming no matter how many times you strike me down. But beyond that, I’m just a grunt. It’s the thirteen of you who have the real power. You understand?”

Another unison nod.

“I trust you all know who Willow Rosenberg is. Last year, you cast a hex on her. This time, you’re going to be the ones keeping her alive.”  
   
* * * * *

Alexia watched as Rack drained the energy of one of her priests. “We are going to need him, you know.”

“Don’t worry,” Rack answered, letting the boy’s unconscious form fall to the ground. “He’ll live. Could use some more, though.”

“Unfortunately,” Alexia said, moving closer to Rack and putting a hand on the unconscious form of her priest, “we need our priesthood.” She quickly checked the boy’s pulse; Rack had indeed let him live, although the pulse was weak.

“And I need power,” he insisted. “Dying takes a lot out of one.”

“So I’ve been told,” Alexia said. “I haven’t had the honor of trying it yet. But I know just what

you need: some young magic-users you can drain dry.” She smiled. _Yes, that’ll do quite nicely. _“And I know where we can find them.”__

Some days, being evil was its own reward. But most of the time, it was just the beginning.  
   
* * * * *

“Do you know what I have in my hand, Beth?” Ethan asked.

Beth drew a few lines on the ground in red chalk, creating a geometrical figure. A gem. “An Yrthas crystal,” the boy said as he finished the drawing.

“Have you ever used one?”

“No,” said Beth. “But you have. When you summoned the demon Eyghon, you used it to enter telepathic rapport.”

Having such a young boy blithely assert details of one’s past could be disconcerting—even more so when one had Ethan’s past. Ethan could never know exactly what Beth did or didn’t know. But Ethan had gotten used to that; like most things, it could be endured with the proper discipline.

“She slipped it to me during our interview. She must have wanted me to use it to escape.”

“Even with the crystal magnifying your magic, you won’t be able to pierce the Shield,” Beth pointed out. “You want out, you’ll have to let me in.”

Ethan nodded, knowing the boy was right. The detention facility was surrounded by a heavy anti-magical barrier, known to the inmates as “the Shield.” One person, even with magnified abilities, couldn’t get through it. But two, locked in telepathic rapport, might be able to pool their abilities enough to create an opening in it large enough to travel through.

“You ready?” asked Ethan.

Beth dragged the long side of his chalk across his drawings, obscuring them. “I’m ready,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Ethan nodded (knowing as he did so that Beth could not see the gesture) and stared into the heart of the crystal in his hand, let his mind connect with Beth’s, feel the vibrations of the Shield—

_Darkness. No, not darkness, but void. Not even so much color as white or black could have been said to have existed. Then Ethan realized he could _feel _the emanations of the Shield, and even more than that of Good and Evil, of Chaos and Order. And the emanations went back into the Past, and slipped forward into the Future. Was this how Beth saw the world?_

The two slid even deeper into rapport.

_Ethan felt a body under his. Female, he could tell from the shape as it pressed upon his. Young. Naked. “Carmen,” he moaned. “Bitch.” He was naked, and he dug his fingernails deeper into the flesh of her shoulders as they—_

Sight came back to Ethan’s eyes. They were outside the detention facility. Outside the Shield.

“How did we get here?” asked Ethan.

“We walked,” the boy answered simply. “Under a mantle of invisibility.”

“You can do that?”

“No,” Beth answered. “I’m just a seer. You’re the mage.”

“I can do that?”

“We got through, didn’t we?”

While Ethan was busy reliving memories of Beth’s sex life, it seemed the boy must have taken control of the telepathic link to not only open a hole in the Shield, but to also cast a mantle of invisibility—using Ethan’s spell-casting ability. The chaos mage shivered. Having his mind at the service of anyone else—least of all a seventeen-year-old blind boy—wasn’t an experience of which he was particularly fond. “So now what?”

“It was your girl who gave you the crystal,” Beth said. “How should I know?”

“Well, where is the bloody bint?”

A cough. “How about looking behind you?”

Ethan turned, and—sure enough—there was Dawn Summers in the front seat of a sporty blue two-door convertible. In her hand, a silver handgun was aimed right at them.

“Welcome to freedom, boys.”  
   
* * * * *

_Osiris is planning something._

In the Otherworld, Janus’ two faces did not change expression. _I was aware of that, Hecate. _

_He means to move against Us, to try and remove _ _Willow_ _Rosenberg_ _ from that plane of existence. _

_You once thought as Osiris did_, Janus reminded Her. _Did You not have Your own worshippers move against __Willow__Rosenberg__?_

_They altered reality, _Hecate admitted, _causing her fears to become truth_. _But that reality was broken. _

_That which can be unmade can be made again._ The god’s chide was gentle, but reproving.

_I no longer wish it, Janus. I have taken her under My protection, even if she continues to spurn My worship in favor of Yahweh. Recent events have caused Me to reëvaluate her rôle. You know that._

Janus seemed to accept this. _I see that You allowed a Higher Power to incarnate. Does she really suppose her presence can make a difference?_

_She is young, Janus. She feels that she must try. Can You fault her?_

Hecate could have sworn She felt a wave of wistfulness permeate the Otherworld. _No_, He said at last. _I suppose not. Yet the fate of __Willow__Rosenberg__ does not lie in her hands._

_And this girl in whom it does? What do You think of her?_

_Dawn Summers? _Janus asked._ She is a creation of pure chaos, after all. The Key. How could I not like her? And chaos follows her, even as it does the witch __Willow__Rosenberg__._

Hecate wasn’t sure She found that response all that reassuring. _She is young to have such a burden placed upon her._

_Yes, _agreed Janus. _As is __Rosenberg__. As are the Slayers. That is the beauty of it all, Hecate. In a situation such as this, only chaos can possibly result. Wait and see._

__She didn’t doubt it. She only feared that this could be the chaos that destroyed Them all.

* * * * *

Amy Madison was about to go to sleep when there was a knock on her dorm room door. She turned back and opened it; outside in the hall was Vaughne, the leader of the Wicca group.

“Can I do something to help you, Vaughne?” Amy asked.

The girl nodded. “Can I come in?”

Amy nodded, and Vaughne entered and sat down on Amy’s bed. “I still don’t understand why we’re helping this Chase woman, Amy.”

“Cordelia’s an old friend of mine,” Amy lied. After all, they had known each other for years; there wasn’t any need to inform the coven of the animosity—on the few occasions that Cordelia even acknowledged Amy’s existence—that had existed between the two as teenagers. And pre-teens. And children. Pretty much since kindergarten, now that Amy thought about it.  “And so was Willow.” That was the truth. Wasn’t it?

“But last year—“

“I know what I asked you to do last year,” Amy said. “And we had our reasons for doing it. She was getting too powerful. Hell, she practically destroyed the world.”

“And now?”

“Things have changed. The Goddess wants her alive.”

“You’re sure of that?” It was a fair question, Amy supposed. After all, she had never been a sycophant. Worship wasn’t exactly her thing. And yet Hecate had chosen her, and told her Her will.

“A Higher Power doesn’t just manifest herself as incarnate by wiggling her nose,” pointed out Amy. “It pretty much requires a divine mandate.”

“But I thought you said she’s done it before,” observed Vaughne. “Twice, even.”

“She has. And each time, it was a major affair. The first time, as I understand it, it was the result of another Power manipulating her. It took the combined energies of both of them to get Cordelia to incarnate. And once she did, the other Power took control of her body and used it to give birth to herself, siphoning off Cordy’s energy once again.”

“And the second time?”

“Payback for the first time. She figured they owed her something, that she deserved to get to do it for real, even if for only a short time. A day. The Powers agreed.”

“I just don’t get why the Goddess would change Her mind like that,” complained Vaughne. “Is this Rosenberg girl dangerous or not?”

Amy sat down next to Vaughne, put her hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “I have a feeling we’re about to find out,” she said.


	3. Chapter 3

Dressed in her black and white robes, and followed by a large cadre of priests and priestesses, Alexia made quite a sight as she crossed the UCLA campus. “I can taste them,” Rack said as he walked beside her, a smile on his lips. “I can taste their power.”

“We’ll have the benefit of surprise for the first one or two,” Alexia pointed out as they made their way to their destination. “But as you say, they’re not without power. They’ll put up a fight.”

“Anything the high priestess of the great god Osiris can’t handle?”

Alexia shrugged. “We’ll find out, won’t we? And that better be reverence in your voice when you mention my god.”

* * * * *

Cordy sat in Amy’s dorm room, discussing plans with Amy and the Wicca group leader, a dark-skinned girl named Vaughne.

“So you think we should—” Vaughne began to say, then broke off and looked at Amy. Amy nodded, and Cordy could see the fear in the two girls’ eyes as they jumped up and ran out of the room.

* * * * *

Amy could only sense the danger the girls were in, and the psychic invasion that at least one had already suffered. But she had no idea what the source of the attack was, so she ran through the hall and down the stairs as fast as her legs would take her. Then, as she made her way out of the stairwell and into the dorm’s lounge on the first floor, she tensed. No. It couldn’t be.

Behind her, Vaughne and Cordelia caught up and kept on running to help the Wicca group, not understanding what Amy saw.

“There you are, darling,” he said to her, a brutal smile upon his deformed face. “Miss me?” He looked down at the girl he held in his hands, sucking the last vestige of life out of her.

“No!” shouted Vaughne as she rushed over to the girl even as Rack let go of her and let her lifeless body fall to the ground. “Emily!” But Amy knew the truth, that it was too late for her. She could only make sure that Rack didn’t manage to hurt any of the rest of the Wicca group.

“I don’t need you,” Amy said, stepping forward to face him. “Not anymore.”

“You keep on telling yourself that, dear,” Rack said, mimicking her gesture by also taking a step forward, toward her. “But I know you still thirst for what I can provide. You want it, you need it, you call out for it. Your friend made me go away, like the wicked child she was. But now I’m back. I can take care of you, Amy.”

“I don’t need your type of care,” Amy insisted, but knew that while she sounded more confident than she felt, Rack would see through the façade. After all, she remembered how easy it had been to let him give her that little extra boost, all she would have to do is let him have that little tour of her mind, her soul, her self. And there was a part of her still that wanted it so, so badly. “You were dead for two years. People change.” But they didn’t, did they? Not really.

“Oh, found Goddess, did you?” Rack sneered. “Don’t tell me you believe in all that touchy-feely stuff now. Mother Goddesses and earth magic and centering and the precious equilibrium.”

“No,” Amy agreed, mentally summoning her most potent magicks to her call. “Like any good child of Hecate, I believe in power.” She raised her hand in front of her and let a fireball form in her palm. “Something you never had of your own.”

She let the fireball go, but felt it hit against an invisible barrier—a shield fashioned of dark magicks, much darker than anything she had ever cast herself. Death magicks. For the first time, Amy noticed the other non-Wiccas in the room, teenaged boys and girls all dressed in black and white robes. “Osiris,” she whispered.

“The God is angered,” said one girl, maybe eighteen or nineteen, as she stepped forward. From her more elaborate robes, Amy figured she was probably High Priestess of Osiris or something. Amy didn’t care if she was Grand Wazoo. “You plan to defy His will, to protect the Rosenberg girl. This has made Him very unhappy.”

“What a shame,” Amy said, frowning. “Maybe we should throw Him a party, try to cheer Him up.”

The girl frowned. “You do not mock Osiris.”

“No? It certainly sounded to me like I just did. Let me make this clear: it’s not my problem if your God has a stick up His divine ass. I’m not afraid of Him.” She was, of course, as any sane person would be, and she half-wondered if He would strike her dead on the spot for disrespecting Him. But no, it wasn’t that easy. There were rules that even gods had to obey.

And she couldn’t step down, not in a situation like this. Certainly not in front of the rest of the Wicca group. She didn’t know who was more powerful, herself or this priestess. She didn’t know if the rest of the Wicca group could take on the remainder of the Order of Osiris. She didn’t know how the presence of Cordelia—where had she found that sword?—or Rack would change the outcome. She wasn’t sure she could afford to find out, but she certainly couldn’t afford to give in to the Order of Osiris, let Rack submit them to psychic rape, draining them dry like he did Emily.

“Leave now,” said Amy.

The girl only laughed. “You really expect us to be intimidated by thirteen—no, wait, twelve—Wiccans and a great and terrible Higher Power threatening us with a _broad sword_? You have no idea the type of power we wield.” She uttered a word and the dark magicks lashed out at Amy, who promptly put up her best defenses. But the Osiran’s magic was too dark, too deep. Vaughne and another Wiccan, Andrea, had to lend their own power to buttress Amy’s defense, help to divert the invisible tendrils of black magic.

In her peripheral vision, Amy could see Cordelia attack one of the priests with her sword; he parried with a ceremonial dagger he must have had in his robes. Around her, the other Wiccans and the followers of Osiris were locked into a battle of wills and magicks, each side using what invocations they could to attack the other. She could sense Rack grab hold of another girl and begin to taste.

“_Det dypeste selv, det mørkeste selv, jeg kaller deg slåss_,” Amy invoked, tapping into that nexus deep within herself which pulsated with the flows of light and dark magic. “_Jeg conjure deg slåss tilbake mine fiender, tilkalle vreden av lys og mørke.” _Straining to use every ounce of power within her, she bombarded the high priestess with magic both dark and light, using everything she had within her to fight off the debilitating death magic. She let herself be lost in the magic, her very identity subsumed by the primordial will to power.

There was no longer Amy Madison. There was only magic. There was only power.

* * * * * 

_In hot summer have I great rejoicing  
When the tempests kill the earth's foul peace,  
And the lightnings from black heav'n flash crimson,  
And the fierce thunders roar me their music  
And the winds shriek through the clouds mad, opposing,  
And through all the riven skies God's swords clash._  
                —Ezra Pound, “Sestina: Altaforte”_  
_

_And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,__  
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,__  
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,__  
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.__  
In the mountains, there you feel free.__  
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter._  
                —T. S. Eliot, _The Wasteland_

* * * * *

And then there was Amy Madison again. She looked around her: three girls lay on the ground, drained, Rack was smiling, and two more of the Wiccans were badly wounded and needed immediate aid. But much of the Order of Osiris was similarly wounded, and a least a couple were dead. Most importantly, the high priestess was on her knees, significantly weakened. Rack stepped towards her. “Here,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. Amy watched as energy flew from his hand into her body, but the girl pushed the hand away, interrupting the flow. “We have what we came for,” she said.

Rack nodded, then helped her to her feet. “This will be war,” the high priestess warned as she left with what remained of the Order of Osiris trailing behind her.

Amy Madison nodded, then turned back to what was left of the Wicca group, planning to help the casualties. “So mote it be,” she said under her breath before she collapsed.


	4. Chapter 4

“Does Big Sister know you have that little weapon?”

Dawn Summer’s aim didn’t waver as she said coolly, “‘Big Sister’—as you choose to call her—is smaller than I am. And doesn’t know I’m in this country. She thinks I left Rome to visit the new Watcher’s Council offices in London. Which is true as far as it goes: I did report to the Council en route to the States.”

A pretty piece of deception, Ethan thought. “Can’t believe Ripper has the balls to go behind his Slayer’s back. May I ask who you are working with, Miss Summers? Travers?”

“Quentin Travers is dead. As for the rest, you may ask. I might not answer.”

It was then that Beth spoke up. “Roger Wyndam-Pryce.”

Ethan turned, in shock. “How the hell do you know who Wyndam-Pryce is?” What would a blind American boy have to do with the British High Watcher?

Beth turned away from Ethan. “The man has fingers in a very many pies,” he said softly. Ethan watched as Dawn gave a slight, knowing nod.

“Roger Wyndam-Pryce,” Ethan repeated. “Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in years.”

“Wish I could say the same,” he heard Dawn mutter.

“The man always did have a bit of Machiavellian charm, even if his son is a bit of a prat. Playing you against Ripper and the Slayer is a stroke of genius, you know?”

“I am aware of the nature of the man,” Dawn answered, extending her left hand with her palm up even as she held the gun straight with her right. Ethan placed the crystal in her hand; she slipped it into her blouse. “Don’t think that I’ll let his power games endanger the Council.”

“And when he backs you into a corner?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “So, are we going to just stand here in the desert with your gun trained on us while they figure out we are missing and then come to find us?”

“Get in the car,” she ordered, slipping the gun into the waistband of her skirt.

Beth smiled and, after finding the car with his hands, deftly hopped into the backseat. Ethan walked around the car and got into the passenger seat. Once they were seated, Dawn shifted the car out of park and began to drive away.

“So where are we going?” Ethan asked.

“Las Vegas,” Dawn answered, her attention clearly divided between watching them and watching the road. “Closest airport to here.”

“And they’re going to let two fugitives get on a plane?”

“Check the glove compartment.”

Ethan opened it to find an American passport. He opened it to see his own picture. Ethan Summers, the name read.

“What am I supposed to be, your bloody father?”

“Or my uncle. Whatever our cover requires. We’ll get a passport for your friend when we arrive in Vegas. The Council has some connections there. Why don’t you introduce us, Ethan?”

“Miss Summers, this is Beth Daniels. Beth, this is Dawn Summers.”

The car braked to a halt as Dawn twisted in her seat to look at Beth. “Your name is Beth?” she asked.

“Do you have a problem with that?”

Dawn shrugged. “Guess not,” she said, turning back around and putting her foot on the accelerator.

Ethan smiled. “So once we’re able to pass as a happy little family, then what? Where do we go from there?”

“That’s always the question, isn’t it?” asked Dawn as she reached 90 miles per hour on the Nevada road, a thin scar stretching through the empty desert.

* * * * *

An hour and a half later, Dawn, Ethan, and Beth had arrived in Vegas and checked into the Luxor using the credit card Roger Wyndam-Pryce had given her. She had hunted down her contact—an Ano-Movic demon named Steve who was day manager at the Pyramid Café—who took Beth’s photograph and promised to produce a fake passport by the next day. While at it, he passed on the newest intelligence: at mystical hotspots throughout the world, undead activity was reaching record lows. “Even the Hellmouth in Cleveland isn’t seeing any vamps,” he said amiably as he munched on a carrot stick. “Something’s up, and if I were a nice young lady like you, I’d stay out of it.”

Dawn nodded, thoughtfully. Osiris, lord of death, was rallying his troops. “I’m going to need to see Abigor,” she said.

“Abigor’s a busy demon,” Steve answered. “He’s not going to be able to—”

“I’ve read the Tradescan Codex,” Dawn answered, stepping closer and lowering her voice. “If the Rite of Isis is performed, or if it’s not performed—if we can’t figure out what it is or what we’re supposed to do to keep the world from ending—then his schedule’s going to be clear for the rest of eternity.”

Steve nodded, picked up another carrot stick. “I’ll see what I can do.”

* * * * *

“Stupid U.S. drinking ages,” Dawn muttered as she made her way out of the Luxor bar. In Italy she was allowed to drink. Well, according to Buffy she wasn’t, but seeing how she had now left the European continent without her sister’s consent and broken two detainees out of an American detention facility, she didn’t feel so bad about having had a drink on the sly now and then.  
And right now, she could really use a brandy on the rocks.

Distressingly sober, she made her way up the elevator and into her hotel room, where she quickly stripped out of her clothing and stepped into the shower. Steve had said even Cleveland was quickly becoming vamp-free, Dawn considered as she let the hot water massage some of the tension out of her back and shoulders. That meant that either something exceptionally good was happening, or something exceptionally bad. She had learned enough from her short life experience to not even seriously consider the former as an option.

If the vamps were leaving Cleveland, Rome, New York City, Moscow, Los Angeles, Toronto, Warsaw, and everywhere else, they had to be going to somewhere. How much was she willing to bet that somewhere was in Brazil?

_Think about something else,_ she told herself. _Anything._

Think about the psychotic British chaos mage (as opposed to the happily adjusted, sane British chaos mage?) she had just broken out of prison. Did she really think she would be able to control him? No, of course not—any such hopes were futile. But as the only living person known to have performed the Rite of Isis, she could only hope his love of chaos would keep him close.

Turning, she slipped in the tub and had to grab the wall to catch herself, ripping her out of her thoughts and returning her attention to the shower itself. _No, don’t think about Ethan Rayne when you’re naked,_ she chided herself. Of course, this thought was immediately followed by a whole list of other people she should never have thoughts about when naked. Giles. Xander. Faith. Andrew. Oh, God, no, not Andrew.

She finished her shower and wrapped her towel around herself as quickly as she could. Finally not naked and thus able to think of whomever she wanted without ew-ness. That settled, she made her way into her hotel room.

Where Beth was sitting on her bed, drawing in a notebook with some pastels he had acquired somehow somewhere in the hotel.

“How did you get inside here?” she asked, looking from the hallway door to the door which connected her room to Beth and Ethan’s. Both were locked, just as she was sure both had been locked when she had entered the bathroom. Beth just sat there, an enigmatic smile on his lips.

“Well, get out,” Dawn said. “I’m going to get changed.”

“I’m blind,” Beth pointed out. “It’s not as if I’m going to see anything.”

There was a sensibility to his logic, but that didn’t mean Dawn particularly wanted to get changed with him in the room, whether he could see her or not. “How do I know you won’t use your mystical psychic vision?”

“If I have mystical psychic vision, wouldn’t I be able to use it through your clothes?”

Dawn had to stop and think about that one. “I don’t know. Would you?”

Beth simply passed her the notebook in which he had been drawing. She gasped in shock when she saw it. There, drawn with near photorealistic accuracy, was a picture of her, completely nude—in a pose she had most certainly never struck in her actual life.

“Okay, now you’re even more officially creepy stalker guy than you were two minutes ago—and that’s saying a lot. Do I even need to ask what they put you away for?”

“I know how to sketch the lines, where to use which color. But to actually see the female form,” Beth said, dragging his fingers over Dawn’s picture and smearing the pastels, “to know what all this represents, actually looks like, to have even an idea what it is that I just put down on that piece of paper—well, that’s denied me forever. It’s not just that I can’t see. I don’t know what it _means_ to see.”

“Forgive me if I say that I’d feel sorrier for you if you didn’t have a naked picture of me in your notebook,” Dawn said, zipping open her travel bag. She dropped her towel on the ground and pulled out a brassiere and a pair of frilly white underwear. As she was putting the undergarments on, she casually flipped to the next page in Beth’s notebook.

What she saw caused her to drop her underpants in disbelief.

“That’s Cordelia Chase,” she said, turning to Beth for explanation. “She’s dead.”

“She’s a Higher Power,” Beth answered, and Dawn wasn’t sure if he meant it as an addition or a correction.

“She has something to do with all this?”

Beth nodded.

“Do you know what?”

“Do you think that they—whoever the hell _they_ are, anyway—bother to provide me with context?” Beth asked with a scowl—the most sincere expression of emotion Dawn had seen on him since they had met several hours earlier. “No, that would make things much too easy. As if making me fucking blind wasn’t enough.”

Wow. When he put it that way, she actually did feel sort of bad for him. Just a bit, though; he was still majorly creepy. She grabbed her underwear from the floor and pulled it up her legs, then flipped to the next page in Beth’s notebook. “Amy Madison? What is this, the Sunnydale High 1999 yearbook? Who’s next, Harmony Kendall? Scott Hope?” She turned the page again, but, thankfully, the next page was blank.

“They’ll be together,” Beth said. “We’ll need their help. That’s all I know.”

Dawn considered. “I can work with that. The Watcher’s Council will have been keeping tabs on Amy. Just let me make some calls, and I’ll be able to get her location.”

Beth nodded, picked up his notebook, and began to walk towards the door.

“Eh, Beth?” Dawn called to him. He stopped and turned back towards her. “Could I get that picture of me?” Even smeared, it was a lot more revealing than she would have liked.

“I was thinking Ethan might like to see it,” Beth answered, a mischievous glint in his unseeing eyes. “Maybe we could frame it, even.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Here’s your passport,” Steve said, handing a small blue booklet to Dawn. “A boy named Beth would have attracted too much attention, so I made him a Bob instead.”

Dawn flipped open the passport. Next to Beth’s picture read the name Robert Summers. “Wait. That’s my birthday.”

“You’re both seventeen,” explained Steve. “If you’re going to pose as brother and sister, you’re going to have to be twins.”

“Won’t the Slayer be surprised when she finds out,” Ethan interjected from behind Dawn

_Why?_ Dawn mused to herself. _She’d just have two fake siblings instead of one._ To Steve, she said, “Can you get us to see Abigor?”

Steve nodded, then turned and gestured for them to follow. “He had to clear his schedule at the last moment just to see you. You should be grateful he agreed.”

He led them to a door, marked “Authorized Personnel Only,” in the side of a large decorative pyramid. The door opened to a series of steps leading down into what Dawn supposed was a basement. They descended until they came to a landing. Steve held his hand over the wall, saying, “_Aperio aperire aperui apertum._” The wall slid open.

“Now if that isn’t a cliché,” Ethan chimed in. Dawn shot him a look, but he only smiled. “I mean, really. All he did was conjugate the damned thing.”

Dawn and Ethan followed Steve into the passage. As soon as they entered, they could hear a voice call out to them. “Miss Summers! Mr. Rayne! Have you come for advice?”

“Not at your prices we haven’t,” Dawn said, turning the corner so she could see who she was speaking to. Abigor was completely human-looking, seemingly youngish and dressed in the garb of an Egyptian pharaoh—minus the fake beard. “We need information.”

“Ah, information,” Abigor said, nodding. “Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. _Corruptio optimi pessima_.”

“Must we really go through this, Miss Summers?” Ethan asked. “I feel like I’ve walked into a bad movie.”

“The Rite of Isis,” Dawn said to Abigor, ignoring Ethan. “It’s mentioned in the Tradescan Codex. We need to know what it is, what it does.”

“Hmm.” Abigor considered carefully. “The Rite of Isis. I remember when the worshippers of Osiris and Isis ruled in the Nile.”

“Osiris-worshippers will be ruling again if we don’t figure out what the ritual does,” Dawn insisted.

“Quite right,” said Albigor. “Let’s see. I might have something that might help you. Walk this way.”

Dawn could see Ethan’s scowl out of the corner of her eye, but Dawn followed Abigor anyway. At least the chaos mage didn’t make some jab about walking like an Egyptian.

Abigor led them to a giant stone slab, covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs. “Probably defaced during the reign of Akhenaten, but the parts that remain mention the Rite of Isis.”

Dawn nodded and bent down in front of the slab, examing the hieroglyphs. “You keep archaeological relics in the basement of the Luxor?” Ethan asked, incredulous.

“Mr. Rayne,” Abigor said, his attention now on Ethan. “I understand you were once familiar with the Rite of Isis?”

“_Once_ being the operative word,” Ethan agreed, deflecting the question. “So what does it say?”

Dawn began to translate out loud. “By order of the goddess Seshat, patroness of scribes . . . then it’s illegible . . . it is a long road that has no turning . . . the Valley of the Nile was filled with Osiris’ children—vampires, probably—until the great Amon-Re vanquished . . . the Rite of Isis, calling out to . . . the gods will walk the Earth . . . the wine will be sweetened . . . the Nile’s waters did recede . . . and the Slayer—wait. This mentions the Slayer?”

“How do you know the Egyptian word for ‘vampire slayer’?” Ethan asked. “I’m pretty sure that never ended up on the Rosettta Stone.”

“One of the older Watchers’ Diaries is written in ancient Egyptian,” Dawn answered, her attention still on the stone in front of her. “Probably by the Watcher of this Slayer mentioned here. Which would mean we have a means of dating the tablet—about early fifteenth century B.C.E., if you trust the Council’s estimates.”

“And that helps us how?” Ethan just had to ask.

Dawn frowned. “Not much, I’m afraid,” she admitted. “I’m still completely clueless as to what the hell the Rite of Isis actually is.”

“Have you tried asking Mr. Rayne?”

“He doesn’t remember,” Dawn said. She looked over the slab again, checking to see if she might have missed anything the first time.

“Have you tried a prokaryote stone?”

Dawn paused, then turned to Ethan and Abigor. “Do you think that would work?”

“No, of course not,” Ethan answered. “I’m not repressing what happened; the whole thing was _wiped_ from my memory.”

“Still, it might be worth a try.” She considered. “You have a stone?”

“I do,” Abigor said, walking over to a shelf. “Just let me get it.”

“I must insist,” interjected Ethan. “You are _not_ sticking a stone into my brain. It is not happening.” He turned to leave.

Abigor simply smiled and put up a hand. “_Congelare,_” he said and Ethan froze in place. He walked over to the paralyzed chaos mage and held the stone under his eye. “_Kun’ati belek sup’sion. Bok’vata im kele’beshus. Ek’vota mor’osh boota’ke._” The stone began to inch up his face, finally crawling through Ethan’s eye into his optical cortex. “_Dissolutum,_” Abigor said with a wave of his hand.

Dawn watched as Ethan collapsed to the ground, spasming violently in obvious pain. Well, even if it didn’t turn up any useful information, it certainly was fun to watch.

* * * * *  
__

_Ethan knew the setting in which he found himself. He recognized it easily: a dark London flat in October of 1979. “Bloody hell.” Anyone could tell this wasn’t going to turn out well._

“Anyone can see that isn’t Egyptian, Ripper,” he was saying. “The iconography is all wrong. It’s Etruscan.”

“It most certainly is not,” Ripper rejoined as he rolled a cigarette, equal parts tobacco and marijuana. “Look at the design pattern. It’s Egyptian.”

“If that’s Egyptian, then so are Charlton Heston and Anne Baxter. But go on, keep on believing it’s Egyptian. Doesn’t matter in the least to me. You go through all the trouble of running away from the life of a Watcher, and what do you do? Research some mystical ritual.”

Ripper just shook his head. “Flamare,_” he ordered as his fag lit by itself. “When I’m done with this, Ethan, you’re going to agree with me that it’s bloody brilliant. I’ve heard that temporary demonic possession can produce euphoria like you’ve never known.”_

“Euphoria? Come on, Ripper,” Ethan insisted. “When was the last time you fucked a girl?”

Ripper took off his glasses, spit on the lenses and wiped them off using his shirt. “Bastille Day. This West Indian girl—”

Ethan interrupted before Ripper regaled him with all the details of his conquest. “Bastille Day? You’re telling me you haven’t had a shag in over three months?”

Ripper looked embarrassed. “Well, that’s assuming Deidre doesn’t count.”

“You’re damn right she doesn’t count. Now, I’m telling you, Ripper, go find some young and innocent girl, and go fuck her senseless. Literally. You can even borrow my leather whip and ropes.”

“Believe me, Ethan,” Ripper said, that mischievous look which Ethan so loved to see finally appearing on his face, “I know my own tricks. I hardly need to borrow yours.” He got up, headed over to the wardrobe to change

Ethan examined the many books spread out on the table. “This, on the other hand,” he said, examining one book in particular more closely, “is most certainly Egyptian.”

Ripper winked at him. “Go find a girl to fuck, Ethan.”

“Are you using this, Ripper?”

“Apparently not, if the whole thing’s bloody Etruscan,” Ripper said, putting on a pair of trousers. “Take it.”

Ethan nodded, picked up the book. Did that really translate to what he thought it did? If he was right, the ritual—the Rite of Isis, it seemed to be called—would seem to unleash incredible amounts of power, so great as to make Ripper’s precious little Eyghon look like a kitchen pixie. Which would be quite entertaining

He smiled.

* * * * *

The pain gone, Ethan looked up to see Dawn and the crazy Egyptian demon looking at him.

“Well?” Dawn asked, “do you remember anything?”

“Only why I hate helping out the good guys,” Ethan said, rubbing at his eye where the prokaryote stone had entered and exited his optic nerve. “I found out about the Rite of Isis in the fall of ‘79, when the book I was using promised it would unleash incredible amounts of power. Sometime after that, I performed the sodding thing, apparently. And then I had my mind wiped clean. Wiped _clean_, mind you—not buried or hidden or repressed.”

“If the ritual is truly that powerful,” Abigor answered, “that would make sense as a standard safety precaution.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s what it was,” Ethan answered. “Childproofing.”

“Well, this has all been a huge help,” Dawn said. She turned back to Abigor. “You sure there’s nothing else you can tell us?”

“Just because I’ve been around forever doesn’t mean I know everything,” Abigor answered. “This is all I know. Unless you want some advice.”

“No, thank you,” Dawn said firmly. “Come on, Ethan.” She walked out of the room and back up the stairs towards the hotel lobby.

“Now we’re off to the airport.?” he asked her.

“Not yet,” she answered. “I need to check up on an old friend of my sister’s. The council has placed her in L.A., so that’s where we’ll be going.”

“Los Angeles,” Ethan repeated. “Because California holds so many wonderful memories for all of us.”


	6. Chapter 6

From the comfort that was the void, consciousness began to creep back in. With consciousness came the much more noticeable ebb and flow of pain. Slowly, Amy opened her eyes, only to find herself in familiar settings: her own bed, in her dorm room at UCLA. Of course, she was also staring into the face of Cordelia Chase, former SHS cheerleader and current Higher Power.

“I feel like shit,” she said. She could hear the hoarseness in her voice as she said it.

“You look it, too,” Cordelia answered, blunt as ever.

“Is everyone okay?’ Amy asked, trying to get up and then subsiding as a wave of vertigo passed over her.

“They’re fine,” Cordelia assured her. “Everyone who lived through it is doing fine. They’re all healed up and we were just waiting for you to wake up.”

“How long was I out?” She really didn’t want to know the answer to that question.

Cordelia shrugged. “A little more than a day. Believe me, that’s not so bad—take it from someone who’s been unconscious a lot longer than that.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t wake up a Higher Power.” She stretched, trying to work out the kinks that seemed to be all throughout her body. “Unless I’m an incredibly weak Higher Power.”

This got a smile even from Cordy. “No, you’re still tied to the mortal coil, for better or worse. They’re not done with you, apparently. Seem to think they can screw your life up even more badly.”

“What are our plans?”

“We need to leave,” Cordelia answered, “before Rack and the order of Osiris comes back again.”

Amy tried to get up again and found that this time, she could sit up without getting too dizzy. “Where are we going.?”

“We haven’t decided yet,” Cordelia said, holding out her hand to help Amy get up. “We were waiting for you.”

“Okay, I’m up. I’m up. Let’s get downstairs and we’ll figure out what we’ll do next.”

After a few steps, Amy was able to let go of Cordelia’s arm and walk by herself. She slowly made her way down the steps to the lounge where all the Wicca group members were waiting quietly—along with three other people, one of whom she recognized. “Dawn?” What was Buffy’s little sister doing there?

“Hey, Amy,” Dawn said. “Hi, Cordy.”

“Hi,” Amy answered uncertainly. “What are you doing here?”

“Same thing as you,” the girl answered. “Protecting Willow. Cordy, do you know what the Rite of Isis is?”

“Yes. Of course.” She opened her mouth, then closed it again. “No. Apparently not. They must have taken the knowledge when I incarnated, leaving me with seven thousand years’ worth of useless trivia. Part of the ‘no interference’ rule.”

“We really need to log a complaint with the management,” Dawn said, “because the Powers totally suck at their jobs. Present company excepted.”

“No, you’re right,” agreed Cordelia. “They majorly suck, as I know better than anybody.”

“So where are we going?” asked Amy, looking from the three newcomers to the rest of the Wicca group.

“Last plan was Brazil,” Dawn answered. “I don’t suppose you all have passports?”

“I’m sorta dead,” answered Cordelia. “I’m supposing a passport isn’t going to do all that much if I want to get out of the country.” She paused, staring at Dawn for a moment before adding, “You should go to Angel.”

Dawn nodded, biting her lip. “Buffy and Giles don’t trust him anymore, but everything seemed fine when I was here at Christmas. Do you know about Christmas?”

Cordy nodded. “Evidently that knowledge doesn’t give us a tactical advantage. Oh, well: I guess insane vampires aren’t going to be our secret weapon.”

“That’s good,” said Amy, looking from Dawn to Cordelia and trying to figure out what the hell they were talking about. “So we’re going to Wolfram &amp; Hart?”

“Just you and Dawn,” Cordelia answered. “It’s probably not a good idea for an entire coven to traipse through the place.”

“You’re not coming?”

Cordy shook her head. “Angel has his own path he’s on now,” she answered softly. “Showing up now would upset that path.”

“Okay,” said Dawn. “Better get this over with. You ready to go, Amy?”

Amy nodded. Even in the last few minutes she had regained a considerable amount of her strength. She still wouldn’t be able to cast a spell any time soon, but Goddess willing, she wouldn’t have to.

* * * * *

Dawn and Amy entered the huge white lobby of Wolfram and Hart. The receptionist studied Dawn, then turned to Amy. Her eyes ghosted over for a moment, and then regained their color.

“Miss Madison, it’s a pleasure to see you again. How may I help you?”

Dawn stared at Amy, who shrugged in response. “They do my taxes,” she told her. “That’s it, I swear.”

Dawn sighed, but turned back to the receptionist. “We need to see Angel.”

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Angel is a very busy—”

Before Dawn could even react, Amy grabbed by the receptionist by her lapel. “You see this girl? She’s the sister of the original Slayer, and a representative of the Watcher’s Council. And I know you know who I am and what I can do. So unless you want to see this place in ruins once again, after going through so much trouble to rebuild it just last year—”

“We have wards,” the receptionist insisted, “defenses, magical shields.” Amy flexed her fingers demonstratively. “Okay, okay. You’ll have to see his secretary. Upstairs, on your left.”

“Thank you for your help,” Amy said, letting loose of the receptionist’s shirt. “Have a nice day.”

When they were a safe distance up the steps, Dawn turned to Amy. “What would you have done if she had called your bluff?”

Amy shrugged. “Absolutely nothing. I don’t have enough juice yet to actually cast a spell.”

“Wow. Whatever you did must have been some powerful stuff, to leave you dry and empty. What happened?”

“We were attacked, by the Order of Osiris. The high priestess was sending out some pretty strong dark magicks, and I had to hit back to protect the coven.”

Dawn whistled. “That must have been quite a battle.”

Amy didn’t answer. How to explain?

They made the left at the top of the stairs, only to have their names screamed out at a higher pitch than Amy thought possible.

“Dawn? Amy? This is so cool!”

Amy blinked. “Harmony?” How many more dead Sunnydale High alumnae would she run into before all this was over?

“What are you doing here? It’s so great to see you, just like old times!”

Amy watched as Dawn extricated herself from Harmony’s hug, then used that opening to get out herself. “Harm, you tried to kill me," Dawn said. "You used me as bait.”

Harmony’s smile collapsed into a frown. “Why does everyone keep on bringing that sort of thing up?” she asked.

“We need to see Angel,” Dawn answered, changing the subject. “It’s important.”

“Sure, whatever, go on in. He’s just arguing with Wesley about some prophecy or something. You know, we should really do lunch or something. Catch up on everything; it’ll be a thing.”

“Some other time, Harmony,” Dawn said, making her way past the blonde vampire into Angel’s office. Amy followed as closely as possible.

Inside, the two were indeed having some type of heated debate. “We just don’t have the resources,” Angel was saying.

“Angel, this is not just a line somewhere in some third-rate prophecy that we can afford to ignore. This is an entire passage in the—” He noticed the girls and stopped. “Dawn, it’s nice to see you.” He looked at Amy and cocked his head, in thought. “You’re the girl who turned herself into a rat.”

“Yeah,” said Amy, feeling more than a little foolish. “That’s me. I got better.”

Wesley nodded. “Quite.” He turned to Dawn. “I suppose you’re here about the same thing I am? Reports of hundreds of thousands of undead creatures—vampires, zombies, ghouls, you name it—converging on Brazil. A troubling passage in the Tradescan Codex. All seeming to revolve around one witch we all know named Willow Rosenberg.”

“What do you want me to do?” asked Angel. “Fred’s working on that case with the children. Lorne’s busy trying to get a movie made out of that show that was cancelled last year, the one with cowboys in space. We have clients to serve, Wes. There are other battles that need fighting.”

“Angel,” Dawn broke in, “if Willow goes dark again, she’s going to make Angelus look like Snidely Whiplash. We need help.”

“What do you want?” Angel asked. “Our attentions have to be here.”

“Just a jet,” Dawn answered. “We need transportation to Brazil so we can deal with the situation there. And total privacy as to whom we put on the jet.”

“I want to go with them,” Wesley said automatically.

“No,” Angel said just as unhesitatingly. “I need you here.”

“Doing what, reading prophecies about apocalypses you won’t let me stop? This is my field, Angel. This sort of thing is why we _have_ a mystical research department.”

“Help Fred.”

“Fred doesn’t need my help. She has a staff. She’s made that very clear.”

Angel stopped. “What does that mean? Is this about Knox?”

“No, you bloody imbecile,” Wes said, finally exploding. “It’s about saving the world!”

Silence lingered between the two figures until Angel finally answered. “You can compare notes with Dawn before she leaves,” he said, calmly. “But I need you here. That’s final.” He turned to Dawn. “The jet’ll be ready in a couple hours.” He handed her a piece of paper. “Give this to the people at the gate; we’ll never find out who you brought on with you.”

Dawn nodded. “Thank you, Angel.”

“You’re welcome,” Angel said, sitting down behind his desk and opening a file. “Give my love to your sister.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Is he always like that?” Dawn asked, sitting across from Wesley in the latter’s office.

Wesley paused, seeming to consider his words carefully. “He’s been . . . different ever since Cordelia’s death,” he finally answered.

Dawn nodded. Was this why Cordelia wanted to make sure that Angel didn’t know she had incarnated? Because she was afraid of what he would do if he found out? “Buffy and Giles don’t trust him anymore,” she said.

Wesley nodded. “They don’t trust any of us. We work for Wolfram &amp; Hart, after all. That means we’re corrupted. We’ve made our deal with the devil and he’s stolen our souls. There isn’t a moment which goes by in which I don’t wonder if they’re not right.”

Dawn paused. She didn’t expect Wesley to be so honest. “So what do you do about it?”

“Keep on working,” he answered. “Try to do some good. Help somebody. Give pretty young girls crucial information to stop apocalypses when I should be there fighting myself.” He passed over to his bookshelf, pulled a book out and held it in front of his mouth. “Tradescan Codex, original text,” he said. He opened up the book, and Dawn watched as blank pages slowly began to morph into the familiar characters of the Tradescan Codex. “How have you been interpreting this passage?” he asked, pointing to one that had given Dawn a great deal of trouble.

"Well, ‘channeler of the sands and the winds’ is an old Egyptian phrase meaning ‘witch.’ The bivalent diacriticals mean that it has to stand for Willow; nothing else makes sense. And here, this set of characters seems to refer to the Rite of Isis.”

“But then it’s not the Rite of Isis which make Willow’s diacriticals lose their bivalence,” Wesley pointed out. “It’s something else going on at the same time. We’re talking about synchronic phenomena.”

“But she still could go dark.”

Wesley nodded, his face grim. “Yes, the Codex certainly seems to allow for that interpretation. We can’t be sure, of course, but—”

“Wesley,” Dawn said, cutting him off, “you didn’t see Willow when she went dark. She has access to the type of power that you and I can’t even comprehend. If she loses her sense of control—well, last time, she almost ended the world. And it wasn’t lack of power that stopped her.”

Wesley shut the book which for the moment was acting as the Codex and looked Dawn in the eyes. “I’m well aware of the gravity of the situation, Dawn. The question is: what are you going to do about it?”

She paused. This was the question Dawn had been doing her best not to ask herself. “I don’t know, Wesley. I really don’t know. Go to Brazil. Bring Amy and her Wicca group and other people I can’t tell you about but who might be able to help. Just go and see what I can do.” She took a breath, trying her best to choke back the tears she had been holding within for the last few days. “I’m lost, Wesley. I don’t know what to do.”

Wesley reached across his desk and placed his hand on hers. “It’s been several years since I’ve been a Watcher, Dawn, and we both remember that I was never particularly good at it. But I can remember the hardest part of the job: to send your Slayer into battle and not know if she will live or die, to not being able to do anything to protect her. One learns to recognize that there are things in this world which are simply outside of our control. It’s not an easy lesson to learn. You’ll do the best that you can. Whatever happens beyond that, happens. No one can ask more than that from any Watcher.”

“And if the world ends?”

The look on Wes’ face was cold and sorrowful at the same time. “Then it ends,” he answered softly. “The question is whether you can live with yourself afterwards.”

He took his hand off hers and picked the book in front of him back up. “Rite of Isis, Egyptian,” he whispered into the binding.

Dawn just stared at him. “You have access to the Rite itself?”

Wesley nodded and handed her the book. “You’ll forgive me if I choose not to read it aloud.”

She nodded, intent on the Egyptian text. _Mother of the Nile,_ she translated silently to herself, _grace us with the magnitude of your power, with the magnanimity of your soul—_

She flipped to the next page. _So that you, Goddess Isis, will bless your children with—_

“It’s all invocation,” she said, in shock. “There’s no hint as to what the ritual actually does.”

Wesley nodded. “The only way to find out what it does is to perform it. Which, presumably, we very much do not want to do, at least not without knowing what it does. Which leaves us at an impasse.”

Dawn looked from the ritual to Wesley and back again. “Could I get a copy of this?” she asked.

Wesley nodded, then picked up a phone on his desk. “Jennifer, I’m going to need a reproduction of the Rite of Isis on my desk in a half-hour for Miss Summers.”

* * * * *

Rack meditated in the corner, sitting in a half-lotus position, hovering about six inches off the ground. Alexia, on the other hand, didn’t have anywhere near that type of focus. She was glad she was able to focus at all as she anxiously paced back and forth along the temple sanctuary.

The Wiccans had gone to find Willow Rosenberg. Alexia was sure of it; she could feel their power receding. They posed little threat—except for their leader, who had held surprising mastery over both black and white magicks—but any obstacle between herself and the destruction of the witch was an inconvenience she could do without. And there was the Higher Power, who had incarnated herself to fight alongside the Wiccans. That posed an unsolvable enigma for Alexia—who would sacrifice that type of power, just to try and protect a mortal’s life?

Oh well. It was not her job to identify the motives of renegade Powers. It was just her job to make sure that whatever this Power wanted, Osiris’ will would be done. That was her purpose in life, to serve the Dark God.

Willow Rosenberg would die. She had sworn the oath over the blood of an innocent. The only question was exactly how Alexia would accomplish the feat.

“I have a suggestion.”

Alexia jumped at the sound of Rack’s smooth voice, thrust out of her reverie. She turned to him, expectantly. “When I taste someone,” he explained, “it’s not just their magic. It’s more like a part of who they are, a piece of their soul. Their dreams, their loves, their hopes and frustrations, and, most relevant to the issue at hand, their memories.”

“You have something we can use against her?”

“Taste for yourself.” He lifted a hand to stroke her cheek, and as he touched her, she could feel it flowing through her, the images flashing through her mind.

“Oh, yes,” she said, smiling. “That _is _delicious.”

* * * * *

Dawn didn’t know what she expected to find at the address for Willow and Kennedy given to her by the Watcher’s Council. A penthouse apartment, maybe, in the heart of Sao Paulo? Instead, she found herself (along with a Higher Power, a blind seer, a chaos mage, and a coven of Wiccans) in front of a brick-paved house sitting in the city’s suburbs.

Willow wasn’t home when they arrived—seeing a contact, Kennedy informed them, about using astral relays to power a series of crystal-based detectors—but the Slayer welcomed the entourage in without a word, although she did shoot a rather angry look in Amy’s direction. What Dawn found inside was even more surprising. With the exception of a few reminders of the lives both Willow and Kennedy led, such as variety of weapons hanging on the walls and the Brazier of A’t sitting in the corner, their house was a study in happy domesticity. Kennedy even put on a pot of coffee for her guests, extolling the virtues of fresh Latin American coffee beans.

Somehow, in the midst of casting spells and slaying vampires, the two had become Stepford Wives for each other. Which was a good thing, she guessed, if the two of them were happy, but . . . Kennedy. And Willow. The mind boggled.

They gave Kennedy an abbreviated explanation of why they were there and what they were doing. Truth was, Kennedy had always been a Slay-now-and-ask-questions-later sort of girl, and Dawn could see that while the Slayer tried to act politely interested, she had in truth grown tired of lengthy descriptions of arcane rituals after about the first five minutes. Still, the Slayer confirmed that vampiric activity in Brazil had been increasing steadily over the last few days.

“Used to be I could go a whole night and only see maybe two or three vamps,” Kennedy explained. “Now it’s a good night if I only see two or three full _gangs_. I don’t slay alone anymore—I always take either Willow or a couple of the newbies. It’s just too dangerous otherwise.” She paused. “Soon I won’t even be able to take out the newbies. They’re not ready for this type of action.”

“Neither were you,” Dawn pointed out. “Maybe no one is.”

“And how many of us died needlessly because Buffy threw us into battle after battle before we were ready?” asked Kennedy.

Dawn didn’t answer.

Willow returned home about an hour later; Kennedy quickly rose to give her lover a welcoming kiss, and then Willow looked at the guests settled around her, quizzically. “Dawn. Cordy. Amy. Ethan. The UC Sunnydale Wicca group.” She paused and looked at Beth. “And I don’t even know who you are.”

“His name’s Beth,” Dawn offered.

Willow nodded. “Right. If this is supposed to be some type of ‘This is Your Life,’ there are a few people missing. Otherwise . . . why are you here?”

“They’re here about the vampire spike,” Kennedy offered, then paused. “Not Spike the vampire. The spike in vampires. There being more vamp activity than before.”

“I knew what you meant, Ken,” Willow said, sending a loving look her girlfriend’s way. “But . . . okay. Cordy, you’re dead. Ethan’s evil. Amy, you sort of hate me. Dawn, you’re supposed to be in Italy with your sister. And I hardly know the rest of you.”

“We all have our stories,” Cordelia answered. “Mostly long ones.”

“I busted Ethan and Beth out of an Initiative detention facility,” Dawn interjected. “Cordelia incarnated, and Hecate commanded the Wiccans to help out.”

“Okay, not so long,” admitted Cordelia. “The point is, whatever is happening here is a big deal. Kennedy’s been telling us about the increased vamp activity, and Dawn’s convinced the portents point towards things getting worse before they get better.”

“Much, much worse,” Dawn agreed. “Have you tried asking for reinforcements?”

It was Kennedy who answered. “We keep on getting denied. ‘The Slayers are needed elsewhere.’ How can they be needed elsewhere if there aren’t any vamps anywhere else?”

Willow nodded. “Typical Council bureaucracy.”

Dawn glanced at her companions, then spoke again. “Willow, we think it’s Osiris behind this.”

Willow turned, startled. “The god? What would He want in Brazil?”

It was Cordelia who finally answered: “You, Willow. He wants you.”


	8. Chapter 8

“That’s ridiculous,” Willow said. “What would Osiris want with me? I’m just your average, run-of-the-mill meet-one-on-every-street-corner witch.”

“Who just happened to ensoul a vampire, bring a Slayer back from the dead, almost destroy the world, and turn every Potential in the world into a Slayer,” Amy pointed out. “You’re not exactly garden variety.”

“Am too! See?” Willow made a wild, inarticulate gesture. “Garden-variety Willow!”

“We both know that’s not true, love,” Kennedy interjected reasonably.

“You summoned Him, tried to command Him to bring Tara back,” Cordy explained. “He’s angered by what He views as your impudence.”

“It’s not anger that drives Him,” Beth corrected. “Not anymore. It’s fear.”

The room went silent. “Who is he again?” Willow asked.

“A seer,” Dawn answered. “Blind one. Named Beth.”

“Where do all these Tiresias kids come from, anyway?” Cordy asked. “Do they have a school for blind child prophets or something? Or is it just some sort of mystical archetype?”

For a moment, no one answered.

“As fascinating as those questions sound,” Dawn ventured at last, “I think we need to be more worried about protecting Willow.”

“Willow can protect herself,” Kennedy pointed out. “She _is_ the most powerful Wiccan on the planet.”

“It might not be the best time to mention that when you’re in a room full of Wiccans, kid,” Amy pointed out. “You want us to get jealous and switch sides?”

Dawn knew she had best intervene before Amy and Kennedy came to blows. “Kennedy, do you think it’d be safe to go out tonight if we all go as a group?” _Of course it’s not safe_, Dawn mused somberly to herself. When was slaying ever safe?

Kennedy considered, her attention successfully diverted by the possibility of playing expert. “Three Slayers, a whole gang of witches including Willow, and a chaos mage? I don’t think that should be too much of a problem. Just keep tight.”

“Good,” said Dawn. “Tonight we’ll go out, scout out the territory. Willow, you and Amy might want to compare notes on the Order of Osiris. For the rest of us, I’m not sure what we can do.”

Willow nodded. No one moved.

Dawn made her own way out of Willow and Kennedy’s living room, through the kitchen and onto the back terrace. Once there, she pulled out her cell phone and checked the readout. Good, she had a signal. The roaming charges were going to be enormous, but that was the least of her problems. She typed in the number for the Council.

“Hello?” asked the person on the other end.

“_In Love, if Love be Love_,” Dawn recited from memory, “_if Love be ours, faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all._”

“_It is the little rift within the lute,_” came the countercode, “_that by and by will make the music mute, and ever widening slowly silence all._”

“_The little rift within the lover’s lute or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, that rotting inward slowly moulders all. It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all._” She paused, taking a breath. “It’s Dawn Summers. I need to speak with Rupert Giles.”

“Just a moment, Miss Summers,” the receptionist on the other side of the phone answered. “Mr. Giles will be with you shortly.”

It was a few seconds before Giles’ voice exploded through Dawn’s phone. “Dawn‽ Where are you? What in the world did you think you were doing? Your sister and I have been—”

Dawn cut him off. “Giles, I need every Slayer not actively engaged in a current apocalypse mobilized and brought to Sao Paulo. And I need it yesterday.”

This time, Giles’ response was calmer. “What’s happening down there? We’ve got the reports, but. . . .” He trailed off.

Even though Dawn was alone on the terrace, she brought her voice down to a whisper. “We think Willow might go dark again.”

There was a long pause before Giles spoke again. “The first contingents of Slayers will be arriving in a few hours. It might take a while to mobilize them all.”

“Thank you, Giles.”

“Good luck, Dawn,” Giles said before he hung up.

Dawn closed her cell and re-entered the house, returning to the living room. Ethan, Beth, and most of the Wiccans had left, leaving Amy and Willow alone with Cordelia. “I’ve called the Council. They’re sending reinforcements.”

Kennedy shot a suspicious look her way, but said nothing. “Thank God,” said Willow.

“It’s one of Them that got us into this trouble,” Cordy pointed out, reasonably.

* * * * *

“That really is a pretty big hole in the ground.”

Alexia laughed as she looked back over her shoulder at Rack. “It’s all that remains of your hometown.”

“Never much liked the place anyway. You ready for this?”

“As ready can be,” Alexia said as she cracked her knuckles. “Stand back and watch an expert in action.”

> _From the ashes a fire shall be woken  
> A light from the shadows shall spring  
> Renewed be the Staff that was broken  
> The crownless again shall be King._

Rack looked at the staff which lay at their feet. “That’s it? It’s that easy? A little whirlwind and there it is?”

“It looks easy,” Alexia answered, insulted. “You try Making sometime, tell me how easy it is.”

“No need to get your panties in a twist,” Rack said distractedly, picking up the staff and looking at it. “So what was that bit about the crownless being King?”

Alexia shrugged. “In the movie, it was that Viggo Mortensen guy. I don’t know where Tolkein got the incantation from.”

“You use spells cribbed from fantasy novels.”

“Hey, if it works, use it,” Alexia said. “It got us what we wanted, didn’t it?”

Alexia saw the small, wicked smile slowly spread across Rack’s face. “It did indeed,” he said, holding the staff high. “It most certainly did.”

Alexia nodded. “Now let’s get to Brazil.”

* * * * *

The sun was due to set in a couple of hours, before any of the new Slayers would have had time to arrive. The group began to prepare for their patrol, each arming themselves with various weapons: Kennedy and her two Latin American charges each took crossbows along with smaller knives; most of the Wiccans armed themselves with daggers; Cordelia picked up an imposing-looking long sword. Ethan went straight for a wicked-looking mace which, Dawn thought, looked decidedly impractical for actually dusting vampires, and incredibly practical for causing immense amounts of damage and pain.

Kennedy watched as Beth picked up an axe. “Are we really bringing the blind kid with us? I mean, he doesn’t have sonar or anything like Daredevil, right? He’s just blind.”

“I’m a seer, not a superhero,” Beth answered indignantly.

“I don’t trust him enough to leave him here,” Dawn admitted as she chose a sleek katana for herself. Her handgun was hidden in her purse.

“Okay, but he better not take off my head with that thing because he thinks I’m some vamp. And if he becomes vamp food, I’m not going to cry.”

“No one will,” Beth said matter-of-factly as he shifted the weight of the axe from one hand to the other. “And I won’t.”

Kennedy didn’t look convinced. “Is that a prophecy or a promise?” she asked as she led the entourage into the night.

Beth never answered, Dawn noticed, but simply held his axe as he waited for action.

* * * * *

 

They must have encountered two hundred or more vamps, just prowling the streets, in the course of a few hours patrolling. Each member of the group held his or her own for the most part, although Beth’s lack of eyesight wasn’t exactly an advantage in his favor. They got through the night with their worst casualty being a dislocated shoulder by one of the Wiccans which Kennedy had reset on the spot.

“It’s like that every night now?” Dawn asked on the return walk to Willow and Kennedy’s house.

“It’s been bad,” Willow answered, “but tonight’s been the worst. It’s been increasing pretty much exponentially ever since the migration’s begun.”

“This is war,” Amy said

Dawn turned to look at the Wiccan, and could see, in the light of a torch that Willow was carrying, that Willow and Kennedy had equally quizzical looks on their faces. “That’s what the priestess of Osiris said,” Amy explained, “when they attacked us at UCLA. I didn’t realize she was talking literally.”

They were on Willow and Kennedy’s street, now. “Uh-oh,” Kennedy said. “Somebody’s waiting for us. Or somethings.” Dawn squinted and could make out two shadowy forms standing in front of the house

“They’re not vampires,” answered Beth. “They’re Slayers.”

Dawn let herself loosen her grip on her katana just a little bit, as the group made their way up to the two figures. In the light of the torch it became clear that they were indeed Slayers, in fact two that Dawn recognized from Sunnydale.

“Reporting for duty!” Vi said, snapping to attention and making an emphatic quasi-military salute.

Shannon, the other Slayer, looked at her companion oddly. “Faith and your sister are working an apocalypse in San Francisco,” she explained, “since Faith can’t leave the country and Giles thought it might not be wise to face you with Buffy just yet. So it’s our job to report to you for orders.”

Dawn nodded. “How many Slayers have arrived so far?”

“Thirty-six so far,” Shannon answered, “counting the two of us. More should be arriving by the hour.”

“If the girls want to go patrolling tonight, make sure they don’t go out in groups of less than a dozen,” Dawn ordered. “In the morning we’ll work on coming up with a plan of attack.”

Shannon simply nodded, but Vi replied with an enthusiastic “Yes, ma’am!”

“And Vi? Don’t do that. You’re not in the military.”

“Yes—I mean, okay.”


	9. Chapter 9

Dawn sat at Willow and Kennedy’s kitchen table, sipping some brandy she had finally found in their cabinet. Most of the others had gone to bed already, tired from the night’s hunt and ready to prepare for a long day ahead. A cheap motel nearby had been converted into a temporary Slayer barracks. She and Cordy had been put in one of Willow and Kennedy’s guest bedrooms, and Beth and Ethan in the other, while Amy and the other Wiccans were doing it slumber-party style in the living room. Over all, it reminded Dawn way too much of 1630 Revello Drive during the last few weeks of Sunnydale.

Kennedy slipped into the kitchen and sat down across from Dawn at the table. “Okay, what’s the deal?”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, Dawn. I’m not stupid. We’ve been trying to get reinforcements for days and all we’ve been getting is red tape. Then you make a phone call and they all start arriving, easy as pie. When they do show up, they report to you. You’re in command of them, even though Willow’s been fighting vampires with your sister longer than anybody else here. No offense, but she’s also way more powerful than you. Do you know what that says to me?”

Dawn decided not to answer.

After a moment, Kennedy continued. “It says to me that you have information that we don’t have, something that was able to persuade the Council to send the Slayers. And whatever that information is, it also caused them to not trust Willow to be in command.” She paused, a poignant silence that hung over the kitchen table. “Will’s going to go dark, isn’t she?”

“We think so,” Dawn finally admitted, her voice low. “We can’t be completely sure, but we can’t afford to ignore the signs, either.”

Kennedy picked up the bottle of brandy in front of Dawn and poured herself a glass. “So. Now what?”

“Look, you never saw Willow when she went veiny. You can’t imagine what she turned into.” Dawn repressed a shudder. “She has no limits, no barriers. Nothing can control her.”

“Hey,” said Kennedy as she finished off her brandy, “I know I wasn’t there when it happened. But believe me, I constantly live with the shadow of what happened. Willow turned into the man she killed on our very first kiss—a fact that I still have to thank Amy for, now that she’s sleeping under our roof. Do you think a day goes by when she isn’t haunted by what she did? Do you think I don’t realize the way it hangs over her, dominates her fears, her hopes, her every thought? Don’t think I don’t know how bad this is, Dawn. Because I do.”

Dawn merely nodded glumly as she downed her brandy. “We’re going to do everything we can to protect her. I promise that.”

Kennedy sighed as she got up. “I know that, Dawn. I do.” She put her glass in the sink, then started up the steps to her and Willow’s room. “Good night.”

Dawn poured herself another glass of brandy. She didn’t drink it; she just sat there, staring at it.

“The reins of command fall heavy on anyone’s shoulders,” a masculine voice stated from above. Dawn started to see Ethan coming down the steps. “Least of all a child.”

“And what would you know about that?

“Absolutely nothing,” Ethan admitted with a smile. “I’m far too anarchic for command, whether it be giving orders or taking them. The only power I desire is the power that comes at the point of a gun—or a spell, as the case may be. The power to warp the world to a will, to break another human being so thoroughly she loses her very will to live.”

“You’re absolutely charming, you know that?” Dawn said.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Ethan answered. “I worship chaos, Miss Summers. It’s not all bunny rabbits and happy puppies. The world has a dark side, as you well know.”

“Do I,” said Dawn, finally taking a drink of her second glass of brandy. She wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.

“A good little girl doesn’t lie to her guardian, leave the continent, stage a prison escape, threaten wanted fugitives at the point of a gun, and then smuggle them out of the country—which I must thank you for, by the way—without knowing a little about darkness herself.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You must hate your sister.” Ethan said it so simply that Dawn had to pause a moment to process the change of subject. Or maybe it was the brandy.

“I don’t hate my sister,” she answered. “At least I don’t think I do. Why would I?”

“Because she stole your childhood,” Ethan answered, sitting down in the chair next to hers. “Not that she got to have much of one herself, of course, but she had a sacred destiny. There was no excuse for her and Rupert to steal yours as well. A girl your age should be in high school, thinking about boys, not commanding an army of Slayers and conversing with a chaos mage.”

“I never had a childhood,” Dawn pointed out. “Not really. I’m the Key. I didn’t even exist as a person until three and a half years ago.”

“And yet I seem to remember a little girl dressed up as Alice Liddell on the Eve of All Hallows.”

“They’re fake, the whole lot of them. Every single memory you might have of me before the day I broke you out of that prison isn’t real.”

“One day you might find that reality is far more mutable than you currently suppose, Miss Summers. The world is what one makes of it.”

“Sounds like something one would find in a self-help book.”

“I think you’ll find most of this new age nonsense is just ancient wisdom with a shiny new bow. What people will pay for, people will sell.”

“You’re not evil.” Dawn wasn’t sure why she said it. It just sort of came out.

“No,” agreed Ethan. “I don’t suppose I am. Good and evil are just labels that hold one back. The trick is to transcend—” He paused, considering. “That was a bit arch, wasn’t it?”

“A little bit,” Dawn admitted. “I’ve heard the whole ‘beyond good and evil’ thing a few more times than I’d like to count.”

“And yet the tune has a few good notes,” Ethan said. “‘One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.’ Very true.”

“Why would anyone want to give birth to a dancing star?” asked Dawn. “It sounds painful.”

“And so it is,” agreed Ethan. “That’s how you know you’re still alive.”

“What’s the use of living if it’s all pain and dying?”

“I’m actually rather fond of the pain and dying myself, so I might not be the one to ask,” Ethan answered. “Of course, I’m considerably less fond of my own pain and dying.”

“Well, I’m doing my best to make sure there’s no pain and dying at all,” Dawn said. “Although all indicators point to me failing spectacularly.”

“What do you want me to tell you, Miss Summers? That death is part of life and birth is always painful? That the sacrifices we make are what gives our choices meaning? A bag of tripe and you know it as well as I. I’m not Rupert, and I’m damn well not your bloody teacher.” Ethan picked up the bottle of brandy and put it away in the cabinet. “Go to bed, Dawn. You have a busy day tomorrow.”

* * * * *

“You’re quiet tonight, honey,” Willow said as Kennedy lay next to her in bed.

Kennedy paused before answering. What should she say? “I’m worried about you,” she admitted.

“Because of what Dawn said earlier? About Osiris?”

“Because of everything.”

Willow squeezed Kennedy’s shoulder. “Everything is going to be all right,” she promised, but over a year of living together made Kennedy more than capable of detecting the note of worry in her lover’s voice. Willow gave her a sweet goodnight kiss, but without thought Kennedy turned it into something more passionate, using her tongue to explore the inside of her lover’s mouth that she already knew so well.

Willow kissed her back, the witch’s hands grabbing both her shoulders and then moving further down Kennedy’s back. They broke the kiss, then Kennedy's mouth sought Willow's neck, kissing down the length of her body. As her tongue entered into her lover's body, Kennedy thought how much she loved Willow and never wanted to lose her.

* * * * *

“You’re aren’t supposed to be out alone past dark,” a voice rang out behind Amy. “It’s dangerous.”

Amy cast a glance behind her. Beth walked up to her and stood next to her on the house’s back terrace.

“I can watch out for myself,” she answered. “Unlike some of us.”

“I _know_ I’m still going to be alive tomorrow morning,” Beth countered. “Can you say the same?”

Amy shrugged her shoulders fatalistically, then realized Beth couldn’t see the gesture.

“That’s life, I suppose,” she said. “Most of us don’t get any warning of what is going to come. We still manage to deal. Or not.”

“Why are you here?”

Amy started at the change of subject. “I wanted to see the stars,” she answered. “The constellations are different here.”

Beth smiled, a sad smile. “Are they beautiful?” he asked.

“They are,” she answered, looking up at them. “You see them and you realize just how small you really are in the scheme of things. But you also feel connected, knowing that even though you are just one small thing, you’re also part of something much bigger.”

Beth nodded. “I’ve drawn the night sky,” he said. “But I still don’t really know what it looks like.”

“Darkness,” answered Amy. “A void so dark and so vast it seems like it will consume anything and everything. But somehow, these points of light manage to break through, to light up the night sky, and make themselves known.”

“Why are you really here?” he asked again. “In Brazil. Helping this Willow girl.”

“It’s the will of Goddess,” Amy whispered.

Beth laughed scornfully. “And you strike me as the paragon of devout faithfulness.”

“She’s treated me well,” Amy said. “I mean, there was the three years I spent as a rat, but besides that, I’ve done well. I have power, I have . . . well, mainly I just have power, but I have to say I’m pretty happy with that; I like power. And when Hecate spoke to me last year, it meant something. That I was special. That She had picked me.”

“So this isn’t about your mother?”

Amy eyed Beth warily. “What do you mean?”

“Your mother was a witch, as well as an insane bitch. Within a year of the Slayer turning her own spell against her, you had already become an accomplished witch yourself.”

“I wanted the power.”

“Who doesn’t?” asked Beth. “But you wanted it so badly, you chose to follow your mother’s less than stellar example?”

Amy didn’t particular like the direction this conversation was going, but wasn’t sure how to extricate herself. She flirted briefly with going back inside the house, but found that she couldn’t. She had to defend herself—explain why she wasn’t her mother. Because she wasn’t.

Was she?

“I’ve avoided my mother’s mistakes,” Amy insisted.

Beth laughed. “What mistake? Tackling the Slayer? If I’m not mistaken, there’s still a Slayer inside that house who is less than happy with you. And at least your mother didn’t turn herself into a rodent.”

“I’ve made mistakes. I’ve learned from them.”

Beth nodded. “Right. Because you’ve found Goddess, and She’s spoken to you, and now you’re all about the balance and worshipping nature and carrying out Her will. Tell it to someone who can’t see the future.”

Amy glanced over at Beth, wondering what it was exactly that he saw.

“Well, I’m not about to start singing, ‘Goddess loves me, this I know, because the Wiccan Rede tells me so,’” she said, “but I’ve learned things. How to avoid karmic payback, if nothing else.” She paused. “I could ask you the same question, you know. Why are _you_ here?”

“Well, a seventeen-year-old with a gun busted me out of prison and hasn’t let me out of her sight since.”

Amy laughed. “We both know that isn’t true. There were plenty of times you could have slipped away if you wanted to. Right now, even.”

“I didn’t want to. Don’t want to. Where else would I go? Besides, I can see far enough ahead to know I’ll be glad I stayed.”

“Well, it’s good to know this experience has a silver lining for at least one person,” Amy observed. “Know anything else that might be useful?”

Beth shook his head. “Don’t know what the Rite of Isis will do, if that’s what you mean. And I don’t know if we’re going to win or lose. Free will means it could go either way.”

“Why is it that people only talk about free will when things are going badly?” Amy asked. “Can’t the gods ever take responsibility for some of the bad things that happen down here too?”

“Who’s going to make Them?” Beth answered back. “Although at this point I think we’re all willing to blame this one on Osiris. Of course, He has a point. Willow _is_ dangerous. She’s more powerful than most people could even imagine. She’s unstable. This time last year Hecate was perfectly willing to let you take her out with a penance malediction. It was Janus who convinced Her otherwise.”

This was information Amy hadn’t had before. She turned to Beth with interest. “Really?”

He nodded. “After she helped fight back the First Evil. That’s part of the reason why Ethan is here, because Janus has taken a liking to the girl. Ethan doesn’t know it, of course, and neither does Dawn.”

“Is that how it is, then? We’re just pawns in some sort of divine plan? Cogs in the Great Wheel? What happened to free will?”

“Free will and fate are compatible. Just because one wants to do something doesn’t mean it’s not predestined.”

“Except you can see the future, which kinda screws that all up.”

She looked up at the constellations in the sky. The patterns were there when one knew what to look for, but each individual star simply travelled through the vacuum oblivious to the greater design. “So I’m here for Hecate, and Ethan’s for Janus. Who are you here for, Beth?”

“Me,” he answered simply. “Being able to see the greater picture means that I’m not bound to it. I’m free to make my own decisions, can pick the future I want.”

“This is the future you want?”

“I knew to come out here, didn’t I?” Beth asked. He reached out with his hand, touching Amy lightly on the shoulder. He slid his hand slowly across her collarbone, feeling his way as he went, then continued up her neck, her chin, until his hand lightly caressed the side of her face. And then, having found his target, he leaned in and kissed her. He was perhaps half an inch shorter than Amy, so he had to pull himself up just slightly to do so.

Amy tensed for a moment, then gave into the kiss, opening her mouth to let Beth’s tongue slip into it. They explored each other’s mouths for a moment, then Amy pulled away as she felt Beth’s hand slide to her shirt. “We’re outside,” she reminded him.

“No one will see,” he said, his voice confident. She wasn’t convinced he would tell her the truth even if he could see the future, but she gave into the risk as she let him pull the shirt over her head. He explored her breasts, her waist, her back with his hands and mouth, actually “seeing” her for the first time. He kissed her between her breasts, then slid his tongue up her body to her neck. He leaned in and whispered in her ear.

“Get on your knees.”

Chagrined, Amy did so. Beth could go first if he wanted.

Just as long as Amy got her turn.


	10. Chapter 10

The day went quickly—far too quickly. It was as if the world recognized that daylight served as a reprieve and wanted to take even that away from Dawn. She met with Kennedy, Vi, Shannon, and a few other Slayers in Willow and Kennedy’s kitchen, discussing possible tactics for the coming night. She gave the order for them to patrol that night in groups of three. Three was far too low to reduce Slayer casualties, but she needed as many groups as possible to keep Osiris’ demonic army from taking too many innocent lives—especially with the possibility that the vampires may be turning rather than simply killing their victims.

Dawn was still in her war council with the Slayers when Cordelia appeared in the kitchen. “Um, Dawn,” she said. “I think you might want to look outside.”

Dawn turned around, looked out the huge French doors onto the house’s back terrace.

“Oh, my god,” she said. Dozens of young men and women dressed in black and white robes surrounded the house, clearly the priests and priestesses of Osiris. Behind them stood shadowy figures dressed in brown robes which covered their entire bodies, including their faces. Vampires, she supposed. “This is not good.”

“I’d think that’s safe to say,” Cordelia agreed.

“Someone call the other Slayers, put them on full alert,” Dawn ordered as she made her way to the terrace doors, flanked by the six Slayers. “Get Willow, Amy, and the other Wiccans out here, too.” Stepping out onto the terrace, she took a mental note of the enemy forces. There was Rack, standing on the side and clearly no longer dead. No, this was certainly not good.

One of the priestesses, more ornately dressed than the others and quite clearly American, stepped forward. “You have angered the god Osiris with your insolence,” she announced. “Turn over the witch Willow Rosenberg and your lives will be spared.”

It was Kennedy who answered. “It’s daylight,” she said. “Do you really think we can’t tear right through your vampire army?”

The priestess laughed, raising her palm in front of her. “How like a Slayer to think with her stake.” A small fireball formed atop her palm. “We do the will of Osiris. We hold power beyond your comprehension.”

Just in time, Amy and the Wicca group came out onto the terrace. “Oh?” asked Amy. “I can comprehend quite a bit.”

“You are powerful, witch,” the priestess said, the fireball still hovering above her hand. “You and I may indeed be well-matched. But I still have the advantages of numbers.” Each of the priests and priestesses raised his or her right hand, a fireball forming in front of it. In an instant, the flame swirled upward from their hands and, as a huge column of fire, began to descend on the terrace.

“_Pare! Hecate de mãe, protege-nos da magia escura de seus inimigos!_” Amy cried out as the fire hit an invisible barrier around the house. Dawn watched as the Wicca group stood behind Amy, the crystals they wore around their necks glowing brightly, providing Amy with the power she needed to keep the flame at bay. Dawn could tell just as well that Amy was struggling, and wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long.

“_Difunda!_” a familiar voice called out, and the fire and flame instantly disappeared. “Enough of this,” Willow said, standing tall on the terrace. “If it’s me that Osiris wants, then He can have me. _Hesperatio_—”

Before Willow could even finish her spell, a beam of blue light hit her solidly in the chest. Dawn watched the high priestess, holding a familiar-looking staff and smiling triumphantly.  
When Dawn looked back at Willow, there were two of her. One was glowing slightly, her hair a bright white. The other—

The other was far too familiar: her hair a jet black, her eyes a glowing red. “Free at last, free at last,” she said with a smirk. “Free from Willow, her petty squabbles and morals, her foolish fears. Free at last to embrace true power. Oh good Lord, I’m free at last.” She raised her arm as if reaching for something, but stopped mid-gesture. Dawn watched her tense, as if trying to move and failing.

“You may be more powerful than any of us alone, Willow,” Amy said, the crystal around her neck glowing. “But that’s why Wiccans travel in covens.”

“The Circle is more powerful than the sum of its parts,” Vaughne added. “We share our strengths, focus our—”

“Spare me the touchy-feely crap,” dark-haired Willow said, finally breaking her arm free of the Wicca’s group spell. Dawn noticed that she didn’t try to cast any more spells, though. “I might not be able to destroy you now, but I will bring you down, Amy. You and anybody who tries to stand against me. _¿Entiende?_” She turned, looked at the mass of priests, priestesses, and robed vampires who surrounded the house, preventing anyone from leaving. “_Flamere._”

Each of the brown-robed figures exploded in a burst of fire, leaving only the humans. “Let her go,” the high priestess ordered, and a column opened up in front of Willow as the priests and priestesses stepped aside to let her pass. The dark-haired witch made her way through and away.

After, she was gone, the Order of Osiris began to disperse, the high priestess sending one last triumphant smile towards Dawn and Amy. “This should be interesting,” she said.

Soon, Dawn, Amy, the Slayers, the Wiccans, and a white-haired Willow were left alone on the terrace. Cordelia, Beth and Ethan were there too, apparently having exited the house at some point late in the shouting match.

“What do we do now?” Cordelia asked, pacing the terrace in agitation.

“Somebody call the Council, tell them that Willow’s gone dark,” Dawn ordered as she pulled her own cell phone out.

“What will you be doing?”

“Calling the only people who can do anything about it.”

* * * * *

Amy watched as Dawn pulled out her cell phone and began pushing buttons. “Hello, I’d like to speak to Miss Hartness, please,” the girl said and then, after a pause, “It’s happened.” She closed her phone and returned it to her hip. “They’re on their way,” she informed the group.

“Who?” asked Amy. She didn’t like not being in the know.

That moment, a _hiss_ sounded and a flash of light formed into two figures: a middle-aged, matronly woman and a younger child, a girl maybe fourteen or fifteen years old.

White Willow’s face lit up with excitement. “Althanea! I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Thank God you are,” Dawn said, breaking into the conversation. “You can see what happened.”

Althanea nodded, eying up the white-haired Willow. “I teleported in the moment I heard you had called. This is my niece, Kelsenia Hartness.” Kelsenia smiled, embarrassed for a moment as there was a beat of silence, then Althanea turned toward Beth. “Don’t even think about it,” she warned him.

He smiled in mock innocence.

“It looked they used the Staff of Toth to divide her,” Dawn explained. “They must have recreated it from the ashes of Sunnydale, same as the Urn of Osiris.”

“The Laws of Making,” Althanea agreed. “Anything that can be unmade can be made again. The only Osirian with that type of power is Alexia, their high priestess.”

“I think we’ve met,” Dawn said. “When Xander was split, Willow was able to put him back pretty easily. Do you think we could?”

Althanea shook her head. “In a normal case, the natural state is to be together and the spell would be doing all the work of keeping them apart. All that would be necessary would be to break the spell. But the dark Willow _wants_ to be separated, and is going to fight against any attempt to reintegrate her.”

“So what do we do?” asked Dawn. “Last time . . . well, you know what happened last time.”

“We should be relatively safe for now,” Althanea answered. “The real danger is if Willow gains any more power. She’s powerful now, but it’d require an increase in power to reach truly apocalyptic levels.”

“She’ll go to Rack first,” said Dawn. “That’s where she got her power boost the last time.”

Althanea nodded, her face grave. “He’s gained powerful allies in the meantime,” she pointed out. “For the moment, the fact may actually be in our favor.”

“And what do we do?”

“It’s a bad situation,” Althanea said.

_Well, duh_, Amy thought.

Althanea cried out to the sky. “Mother!”

Amy was reminded of reruns of _Bewitched_, with Elizabeth Montgomery yelling to an empty room and having Agnes Moorehead appear.

_Yes, my daughter?_ a Voice answered. Amy recognized it: it was the same Voice which had come to her the year before, urging her to cast the penance malediction.

“I’d have to say this is not one of Your finest moments, Mother.”

Now Amy called Hecate “mother,” but when Althanea did so it was with an even deeper familiarity. She realized with surprised that while she was always speaking metaphorically, the elder witch was not; Althanea was the literal daughter of the Goddess.

The fact was somewhat awe-inspiring.

_You say that as if this were somehow My fault, Althanea,_ Hecate said. _Can I control what Osiris chooses to do? Can I interfere in the free will of a human being?_

“You couldn’t come up with a better response than sending a bunch of kids to Brazil and letting them split Willow in two? I thought you were protecting the girl.”

_There is only so much I can do. The rest is in the hands of those around you._

Althanea shook her head. “One day, You’re going to cut it too close, and it’ll be Your fault that the world ends.”

_Perhaps. Now you must focus on making sure _that_ day isn’t today._

“Easier said than done,” Dawn muttered, answering for Amy the question of whether the non-Wiccans present could hear Hecate’s Voice.

_I will help you once I can, my children. Pray it will not be too late. Until then, My hands are tied and you must go on by yourselves. Good luck, all of you._

“Good luck?” asked Ethan, a macabre smile on his face. “When the gods are wishing us luck, we know it’s bad.”

* * * * *

There was nothing to do, they finally agreed, but to hurry up and wait. Without a way to re-integrate Willow—and without knowing where the dark Willow even was—there was nothing they could do but prepare for the night’s patrols and see how things unfolded.

Dawn stepped out of her taxi onto Willow and Kennedy’s front lawn, having thus returned from the motel that had been acting as a makeshift Slayer barracks to talk to the various Slayers and inspect the troops. It had been quite the awe-inspiring experience to see the hundreds of girls, of every ethnicity and nationality imaginable, gathered in front of her.

“It’s my sister who’s really the speechmaker,” Dawn had said to them. That had gotten a few chuckles from the Sunnydale veterans. “But I wanted to say a few things to you all before you went out tonight. You are Slayers. Chosen ones. Born with the strength and skill to hunt the vampires, to stop the spread of their evil—can I assume you’ve all heard this speech?”

There was some more light laughter. Tensions were running high, and humor was in short supply.

“The point is, this is what it all comes down to. There are vampires out there—thousands of them. Come nightfall, they are going to come out. It’s your job to fight them, make sure that they don’t harm innocent people. This is what you were Chosen for.

“I can’t say that I envy you your calling. Not that I never wished I had super strength, extra agility, or the ability to reknit a broken bone in a day or two. When you grow up the little sister of a superhero, you learn to be jealous real fast. But people are going to die tonight, and chances are it won’t be me. If I die, I’ll be doing it with everyone else when the world ends.

“Many of you are used to fighting alongside maybe one or two other Slayers. Those types of tactics aren’t going to work against this threat. This is the first time in the history of the _world _that this many Slayers have been gathered in the same place.” Of course, only a year before that many Slayers didn’t even exist. “Even though you will be divided into groups of three, each group needs to coordinate its movements with the others. We are going to have to present a unified front against this threat, or else it is going to eat us alive. Literally.”

No laughter there. Good. It wasn’t a joke.

“What I need from you are tactics. Cooperation. Communication. You are the Chosen Ones, the sisterhood of Slayers. You share a bond deeper than most of you know. If you work together, there is no vampire, no demon, no god that can stay in your way. This I know.

“Not even the battle against the First back in Sunnydale was quite of this scale. We have a lot more Slayers; they have more vampires. More importantly, this battle is above ground, which means innocent people are at risk. While our primarily mission is to guard against dark Willow, protect the whole Willow, and end this apocalypse once and for all, the protection of civilians is an integral secondary objective. You are Slayers in order to protect the human race. Tonight, you’ll get the chance.”

Then she had turned away and left, knowing as she did she was leaving some of them to their deaths. She had learned from her sister that the longer the speech, the less effective it usually turned out being. The last thing she wanted to be right now was General Buffy, Part Deux.

Now, Dawn entered the house, passing Kennedy sitting in the parlor. “Where’s Willow?” she asked the Slayer.

“Which?” Kennedy asked, not even looking up from the book she was reading. _The Art of War_ by Sun Tzu.

“White.”

“She’s meditating in the rock garden,” the Slayer answered, finally lifting her gaze to make eye contact with Dawn, “convening with the essence of the universe. Whoever stole my girlfriend and replaced her with Mahatma Gandhi? Is definitely going to get the chance to apologize to my fist.”

“It’s still Willow.”

“What?”

“Or part of her,” Dawn clarified. “The Osirians used the Staff of Toth to divide her into two distinct parts: scary veiny Willow and hippie love-fest Willow. Scary Willow wants to destroy the world or at least enslave it to her will, while hippie Willow wants to sit in a rock garden meditating. They’re both parts of the real Willow.”

The look of determination on Kennedy’s face was one that Dawn knew well from seeing it on Buffy’s. It was one that usually preceded a Slayer picking up a sword and going off to kill something. “Well, I want both parts of my girlfriend back. And in the same body.”

“So do we all,” answered Dawn. After all, if Willow were to—no, who were they kidding, _when_ she did—find a power source, they would all be sorry.

Kennedy glanced down at her book again, then closed it and set it aside. “How long do we continue to consider reintegration a viable option?”

She couldn’t possibly be asking what Dawn thought she was. Could she? “You don’t mean—”

“Willow lived in constant fear of what she might do if she loss control,” Kennedy answered, not flinching. “I won’t let that happen. Even if it means, even if—” Kennedy didn’t finish, but Dawn knew what the Slayer meant. _Even if it meant killing Willow. _

“We’ll reintegrate her,” Dawn promised, knowing as she said it that her reassurances were relatively empty.

“But when the moment comes that that’s no longer an option?” Kennedy asked. “Will we be able to do what we need to do?”

Confused, Dawn looked at the Slayer. “Will we—?” Suddenly, Dawn understood. Willow must have had made Kennedy promise to kill her if she ever went dark. Kennedy was afraid that when the time came, she wouldn’t be able to keep her promise to her lover.

Dawn prayed the Slayer would never have to find out if that was true.


	11. Chapter 11

Alexia paced through the towering colonnade of the Brazilian Temple of Osiris. This was their moment of victory. The undead had converged on the South American country from all over the world. Even now they waged a war against the Slayer line, as the Chosen too came to Brazil to fight the vampires and to protect Willow Rosenberg. Rosenberg herself had been divided in two by the Staff of Toth—into her harmless benevolent side and her powerfully destructive “dark” side. By all accounts, they were winning the war.

Still, she was restless. She was never one able to hurry up and wait. She wanted to be in the thick of battle, channeling black magic and creating death and carnage in her wake. She wanted to kill Willow Rosenberg in the service of her god.

Instead, she was pacing back and forth in the temple. “Relax,” said Rack, slipping through the colonnade. “You’re too tense. You need to . . . unwind.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she could feel power flowing into and out of her, her potent magic mixing with his. She felt it crackling through her body, and Rack’s presence traveling it with it, gently feeling out her body from within, learning the contours of her mind, body, and soul. The energy flowed through her arms and legs, and she could feel her muscles relax under Rack’s gentle ethereal touch. It passed through her chest and she could feel her breathing slow as she took deeper, peaceful breaths. She felt it center between her legs, then slowly—but powerfully—built to a climax as she came along with it. “Oh, that was good,” she said as Rack removed his hand from her shoulder, even though she could still feel the relaxing effect his touch had produced.

“Well, I hope you’re not all spent now,” a mocking voice interjected. “I do hate getting sloppy seconds.”

Alexia smiled as she watched a dark-haired woman clad in black leather swagger—yes, _swagger_ was definitely the word—towards them through the colonnade. Rosenberg. Alexia didn’t even bother asking her how she got in—any even moderately skilled witch would have been able to penetrate the protective wards in the outer sanctum. It was here that things would get interesting.

“I suppose I should thank you for setting me free,” Rosenberg said. “Having to worry about things like control, restraint—it was disgusting. Loathsome.”

“They’re going to try and trap you in that prison again,” Alexia pointed out. “Your only help is to destroy the other Rosenberg before they can reintegrate you.”

Rosenberg only laughed. “You truly believe I am a fool, don’t you? I know perfectly well that if my counterpart is killed then I die with her. No, I need her in this world, as frustrating as her continued presence may be. We all have our burdens that we must bear, I suppose.”

Alexia shrugged, nonchalant. No, she hadn’t supposed the ploy would work, but it had been worth a try: it would have been so clean, so easy. Oh well. Perhaps she could get one of Rosenberg’s former allies to kill the witch now that her evil dark side was loose and dangerous.

“But now, while my better half is off running skyclad through the night-sky somewhere,” Rosenberg continued, “I can focus on what is rightfully mine: the world.”

“Osiris will never let that happen,” Alexia said. “Nor, I suppose, will your former friends. Do you really think you, a mere mortal, have the power to stand against a god?”

“I am powerful—you have no idea how powerful,” Rosenberg said. “But you’re right. It’s not enough, not yet. I need more. I want more.”

“You’re running on pure fury,” Rack observed with a smile. “Lust, greed, thirst for power—these are the things that make you what you are now. As you are, you will never be satisfied. You lack balance. It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad you approve,” Rosenberg said, thrusting her hand forward—and just as quickly getting it knocked back._ Shield around us, never broken, shield surround us, keep us from harm, _Alexia invoked, praying to Osiris that the wards in the Inner Sanctum would hold. If not, after all, if she managed to drain Rack or Alexis, Rosenberg would almost instantly become incomprehensibly powerful, and all of their service to Osiris would be for naught.

“I _will_ find the power I seek,” Rosenberg vowed, stepping back. “When I do, both you and Osiris will truly have cause to fear me.”

And with that, she turned and exited the temple. Alexia just smiled. Yes, this was the type of action she had been missing.

* * * * *

Kira Austin was a Jersey girl, born and true. She had never so much as left the Eastern Time Zone, although she had traveled with her family as far as Florida in one direction and Massachusetts in the other. Even once she had become Chosen she rarely found the need to leave the borders of her home state. The likes of Camden, Newark, and Jersey City provided more than enough vamp activity to keep her busy without ever having to venture too far from home. Not to mention Atlantic City, which proved to be a demon haven of an altogether different sort.

Now she was only a single time zone over, but she was in a completely different country. Hell, she was in a whole new _hemisphere_. She was in Brazil to fight vampires because . . . well, because of a whole slew of reasons each more fantastic-sounding than the last. Her life had certainly changed in the last year.

Instead of the icy chill of a Jersey winter, she suddenly found herself in the heat of a Brazilian summer. During the day the temperature had hit near 100 degrees. Now that it was night it was somewhat cooler, but still incredibly warm. She had gone from wearing long pants, a sweater, and a winter coat to a pair of elastic shorts and a Philadelphia Flyers jersey.

The jersey was more because of its bright orange color than any particular need to show off Philly pride to the natives of Brazil or the vampires they now hunted. Her job tonight was to be the bait. It had developed into a fairly standard Slayer tactic in the last year: one Slayer draws out a gang of unsuspecting vamps looking for an easy meal, and then her accomplices arrive to help save the night by wiping out the entire gang.

The technique was particularly effective tonight, in part because there were just so many vamps in Brazil due to the mystical convergence or whatever it was that was going on. But Kira suspected it was more that the vampires were looking for battles. They didn’t care they were falling into traps, because they weren’t looking for easy prey. Instead, they were merely out to cause as much damage as possible. If that entailed killing a Slayer, all the better, and it didn’t matter how many vamps got dusted in the process.

There was simply no way the Slayers could hope to win a war of attrition. There were simply too many vamps and not enough Slayers. Kira had already seen as many vampires that night in Brazil as she had seen in the entire past year in New Jersey.

At this moment, she thought she saw a movement in the shadows. Possibly a vamp, but it could have been just an animal. (Did they have squirrels in Brazil? Maybe a monkey?) She continued down the street as nonchalantly as she could feign, fully believing the entire act wasn’t even necessary. If it was a vamp, he or she would attack.

And so she did. A wild-looking creature, with hair that clearly hadn’t seen the inside of a conditioner bottle for several decades, emerged from the shadows and lunged at her. Kira instantly jumped into the air, flipping backwards as the vamp tried to stall her momentum as she ran under Kira. The Slayer landed right behind the vamp, and staked her in a single, clean motion. Dust.

In the process, however, three more vamps had emerged from the shadows. Kira parried a few blows, trying to find an opening for her stake, then quickly ducked

Where were Akemi and Ilyana? Spinning so she could beat back all three vamps simultaneously, she quickly scanned the street around her. There they were, down at the corner—surrounded by another half-dozen vampires. She could feel her heart sink into her stomach.

She could also feel a vampire fist landing in her abdomen. Ouch.

She watched with horror—using only her peripheral vision, her main attention being on her own fight with the vamps the entire time—as one of the vamps in the distance grabbed Ilyana and quickly snapped the young girl’s neck.

Kira kicked away one of her attacking vampires, determined to make sure she didn’t share Ilyana’s fate. That vampire was now vulnerable to attack, if Kira could just get away from the other two vampires which continued their assualy. More important, there was now an opening in the wall of vampires surrounding her. She lunged forward, out of the center of the circle, and drove a stake into the heart of the isolated vamp.

As she turned to reengage the remaining vampires, a looming figure swept down from behind her and bit her on the neck.

* * * * *

Dawn Summers hung up the phone. “Another one dead,” she said to the empty room.

At least, she believed it was an empty room. Ethan stood outside the kitchen, just outside of her sight line, listening as she paced the room in agitation.

Casualty reports had been coming in all night. As expected, the Slayers had taken heavy losses. That had, of course, been more or less inevitable ever since the Summers girl had ordered that the Slayers hunt in patrols of three. It wasn’t nearly enough to protect their own, but they needed the added groups to adequately protect the Brazilian civilians.

It was one of those problems that had no satisfactory solution, Ethan mused. He listened as Dawn opened one of the cupboards. The brandy, presumably.

Ethan had seen many girls like her in his lifetime. Not primordial energy fashioned into a human teenager, of course. In that way, she was unique. But the darkness he saw in her soul was very familiar to him. The confusion, the turmoil, the need to break rules and to lash out angrily at a world which refused to understand her, all that he knew well—had seen in all sorts of girls ranging from fellow Chaos worshippers to two-pound shags.

Never before in his experience, however, had the fate of the world rested on such a girl. It was simply another irony on top of a world of others. She had spent the entire day planning out the night’s hunt, coordinating the efforts of each three-Slayer team with the others so that the total effect would be one of a single devastating army. _Janus, Master of Chaos,_ he silently prayed. _This night is Yours. This entire scenario has Your fingerprints all over it. Now look over Your children, this poor girl included._ And with a final silent deep inhalation, he did what was needed, and stepped into the kitchen.

“If you continue like this, Miss Summers,” he said, “you’ll soon be an alcoholic.”

“If the world ends, I won’t have time to become an alcoholic,” she pointed out, as she put the brandy bottle and a glass on the counter. She removed another glass and looked to Ethan questioningly.

“That’s my type of logic,” Ethan agreed with a nod.

Dawn poured them each a glass of brandy, and then set the two glasses down on the kitchen table.

Ethan sat across from her and raised his glass in the air. “To living life to the fullest—and telling the consequences to sod off.”

This elicited the frown he had hoped it would have.

“The consequences are at least two dozen teenage girls who aren’t going home to their parents, all because of an order I made,” Dawn said. “Why anyone trusted me to run this war I don’t know. We all know I was created as a force for destruction. Not to mention I steal things and am not exactly emotionally stable.”

“You were trusted because there wasn’t anyone else who could be. Our fates are thrust upon us, as little fondness as we may hold for the fact.” Ethan hated the thought that his life belonged to anything other than his own caprice. He worshipped Chaos in large part because he was attracted to the idea of a will that was radically free in a world that was largely random. Still, he knew that sometimes from within that Chaos a pattern emerged that could not be resisted, as much as he might try.

“I’m with my sister on that one,” said Dawn, looking at the full brandy glass, not yet drinking it. “Fuck destiny.”

“Oh believe me, Miss Summers, if I could only find it, I most certainly would.”

This seemed to force a rather dark-sounding laugh from her. Still, her features returned to an unhealthy brood almost immediately. “I’m still a force for destruction. Evil.”

“Oh, come on,” Ethan said. “If I’m not evil, surely you cannot be.”

Dawn seemed to consider this. “I guess that’s true,” she admitted at last.

“It is a far too black-and-white world where your only options are good and evil. Perhaps your sister has the luxury of moving in such a world, but you and I cannot afford it.”

“’You and I’?” Dawn asked quizzically.

“Not just you and I,” Ethan amended. “Rupert’s in the same boat, you know. You’re marked as much as we are, even if you don’t have Eyghon’s tattoo on your arm. That ring on your finger does it just as well.” Dawn’s eyes glanced quickly to the Ring of Ouroboros she wore on her right hand. Ethan continued. “One day, Miss Summers, you will kill somebody. Not just send him off to die, but actually take his life in your own hands and end it, because you and no one else decided that he could not be allowed to live.”

“I couldn’t.” He noticed she didn’t quite look him in the eye when she said it.

“Bosh,” he answered. “Not only can you, you will. Because when it happens, you won’t have any other choice. Just as you didn’t have any choice but to send those girls to their deaths tonight.”

This time she looked him straight in his eyes, and he recognized the gaze he saw there. The longing, the need to deny what was true. The inability to run from oneself, and the intense desire to try. “I don’t want to.”

“Then walk away,” Ethan answered easily. “Go back to Italy. No one made you go behind Ripper and your sister’s backs. You didn’t have to bust Beth and me out of prison. You can turn back at any time.”

Dawn’s eyes dropped to the still-full brandy glass. “No, I can’t,” she muttered at last. “And you know it.”  
_  
Thank Janus,_ Ethan thought to himself. “We are each of us who we are,” he told her. “Myself, the disciple of chaos. Your sister, the champion for good. Even Osiris Himself has His place in the Chaos of the universe.”

“Place in chaos? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Didn’t it? He wasn’t sure himself if it made sense or not, as he was winging most of the conversation almost entirely by ear, just as he liked it. But if he was going to pull this off, he had to make her believe he had access to wisdom he didn’t actually possess. “It makes perfect sense and you know it. Don’t play coy with me, little girl.”

She said nothing, seeming to accept his bluff.

He paused, then stood up and walked towards Dawn. He knew what she needed now, what he had to do. _Janus,_ he thought, _she is truly one of Your children._

“Such a young, innocent creature,” he said, running his fingers along the side of her face. The deliberately gentle touch of his hand on her face turned harsh as he dug his fingers into her cheek. “How does that feel?” he asked.

“It hurts,” she answered, pulling away. “Ouch.”

“And?” he asked, prompting, as he looked at the four red welts that had already begun to form.

“I kind of liked it,” she admitted after a moment, her voice low. “Is this how Buffy felt when she went to Spike?” she asked, presumably more to herself than to Ethan. “So . . . so desperate for feeling that even pain feels good?” She would still be able to feel the sensation, he knew, stinging on the side of her face.

“Pain is part of Chaos,” Ethan said. He knew what she needed, of course. She needed the darkness, the bleakness, the pain. What he would do now is what he would need to do, for the good of Chaos. Not that he wouldn't enjoy doing it, of course.

Quickly, before she could register his movement and block it, he grabbed her by the neck and twisted pulling her out of her chair in a single quick and fluid motion. He could feel her try to resist, but he was stronger and bigger and his experience with martial arts exceeded her own not-inconsiderable fighting experience. He sat down in the chair that she had vacated, then pulled her down so that she lay across his lap. She continued to struggle, but he he held her down in that position until she finally stopped, realizing she would not be able to break free.

"That girl, the one they just called about. What was her name?"

"There were three," Dawn admitted, trying to twist to be able to look up at him. He held her still, an iron grip on the back of her neck holding her head facing the floor. "Kira Austin, Ilyana Saumu, and Akemi Si-Ti.”

Continuing to hold Dawn down with his left hand, Ethan raised his right hand in the air and brought his palm down, hard, on the girl's backside, smiling in satisfaction as she involuntarily let out a quick gasp of pain. Then he did it two more times. "And the girl before that?"

"Serafina Walters."

He spanked her again. “Isadora Bianchi," she told him, this time without prompting. He hit her again, then spread his legs so he could reach underneath and find the fly of her jeans. When she realized what he was trying to do, she began to squirm again, violently thrashing on his lap, but he applied pressure to a point behind her neck and she stopped. Continuing to hold her down with one hand, he used his free hand to unbutton her jeans and unzip her zipper, then pulled down first her jeans and then the pink thong which had been underneath. He looked at the naked buttocks which now stared back at him, already a little pink from the spanks he had given her through her clothing. "Who else?"

“Vanessa Reifsnyder."

He spanked her, feeling his palm slap this time against the naked flesh. Yes, that was so much more satisfying, he thought.

"And?”

“Cynthia Novacek.”

She recited over a dozen more names without any further encouragement from Ethan. She had no difficulty remembering each of the deceased Slayers' names, as he knew she would not. After each name, he'd spank her again, and her buttocks grew a little redder. The idea, after all, _was_ to hurt her, because that was what he knew she needed. A true child of Janus, she needed to feel the intense pain he could cause her. He smiled as he spanked her again. Just as true a child of Janus, he derived intense enjoyment from causing that pain. It was the _yin_ and _yang_, the night and the day—the two faces of Janus.

Eventually the litany of names stopped. Ethan spanked her a few more times just for the hell of it, than let her get up. "I absolve you of your guilt, Miss Summers," he told her, with all the seriousness he could manage. "Go forth and sin some more."

She turned to him, her jeans and pants still at her ankles so that he now had an unobstructed view of her from the waist down. He offered her her glass of brandy; she took it and downed the glass in a single gulp.

"I rather suppose that Beth will be sleeping in the living room with the Wiccans tonight," Ethan told her, conversationally, as if gossip was the thing one did with a teenaged girl with her pants around her ankles. (If that were true, perhaps gossip would have held more of an appeal for Ethan. As it was, he preferred to act.) He knew that, having given Dawn what she needed, he should now bow out into the night, wisdom imparted. He had done the job the universe required of him, and to do anything else would be to take advantage of a troubled young girl. As usual, of course, he didn’t give a rat’s ass about any of that.

"With all of them?” Dawn asked, sounding surprised.

"They will all be in sleeping in the living room,” Ethan explained, “as they did last night. If Beth sleeps with them, it will be with all of them. As for activities other than sleeping, I suppose Beth will be with as many as are willing. Most of them, I'd think. On a night like this, when one is surrounded by so much death, one likes to take part in life."

Dawn nodded, thoughtfully. "I'd like to take part in life."


	12. Chapter 12

Kennedy made her way silently into the dark house. The night’s hunt had been long, and she had seen more than a couple Slayers die beside her—a sight she had been glad she had not needed to endure since Sunnydale. But just like Sunnydale, the Slayers were at war, and wars came with casualties. Kennedy trusted Dawn to keep as many of the girls as was possible alive. She wouldn’t make the types of mistakes that Buffy had made the year before.

Everyone else in the house was asleep, and Kennedy smiled to herself as she stepped over the half-naked bodies which covered the living room floor. There was definitely the tell-tale evidence of an orgy here.

She made her way up to her room without turning on any of the lights, using her Slayer’s night vision instead. Once she reached her room, she began to strip out of the bloody and ripped clothes which bore the signs of the night’s patrol.

She had kicked off her shoes and was taking off her shirt when a familiar voice broke in. “Ooh, baby,” it said. “Take it all off.”

Kennedy spun around to see a dark-haired Willow standing in the open door of their bedroom.

“Hello, lover,” Willow said, stepping forward. “I didn’t think you would want to go to bed alone.”

“Stay away,” Kennedy cautioned, stepping back. “I’m warning you.”

“Oh, you don’t get to do the warning, little Slayer,” Willow said with a smile, taking another step. “I’ll do the warning. And I warn you that you are in a very sticky situation. I wouldn’t try to make me angry if I were you. Now take off your clothes.”

“What do you want, Willow?”

“What do you think I want, Ken? I thought maybe we could play with dolls together.” She took another step forward, and Kennedy took another step back. She was quickly being backed into a corner. “I’ve had a tiring day, baby. It seems nobody wants to give me absolute power. They don’t trust me just because last time I tried to use it to destroy the world. I tell them this time I’m much more interested in ruling it, but no one seems to be convinced.”

The playful look on Willow’s face suddenly disappeared as her features hardened. “Now take off your clothes. I won’t say it again.”

“Willow, this isn’t really you. You don’t really—” She broke off as a wave of dizzying pain flooded her body. Just as quickly, it was gone.

“Don’t tell me what I really am,” Willow said. “You think I’m just a nice girl, don’t you, always reliable in the fight for good. Well, dear, you’re going to see that I can be so much more.” She raised a hand, and a ceremonial knife hanging on the opposite wall came flying into it. She caught it easily by the hilt. “We could have done this the easy way, you know. But it’s just like you to choose the hard way.” She took another step forward, and Kennedy knew there was no choice but to fight. Reason wasn’t an option. She raised an arm—

“_Congelare,_” Willow invoked before Kennedy could strike and suddenly she was frozen in place, unable to move.

“Such a bad girl you are,” Willow said. “But don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody. It’ll be our little secret.”

Willow placed the cold blade of the knife against Kennedy’s cheek, then slid it lightly down her face, tracing the line of her jaw and then running it down her neck. Kennedy had already removed her shirt when Willow had appeared, so the knife continued down until it rested between Kennedy’s breasts. She stood still, barely daring to breathe, when suddenly with a flick of Willow’s wrist the knife sliced through the fabric of Kennedy’s bra. It fell to the ground, leaving Kennedy completely topless.

Without even pausing, Willow continued to bring the knife farther down, passing over Kennedy’s navel and slipping the blade into the waistband of her jeans, running it around to her left hip. Willow began to cut through the fabric, sliding the knife down the length of the pant leg. When she finished, she cut open the right pant leg in the same fashion, and Kennedy’s jeans fell off, leaving her naked except for her socks and panties.

Working meticulously, Willow slipped the knife blade into each sock, slicing it open and leaving each of Kennedy’s feet bare. Every other garment cut off, Willow traced the knife back up Kennedy’s leg, slicing through Kennedy’s panties at the right hip. Then she slipped the knife between the Slayer’s legs, and with another flick of the wrist, cut them off, causing the panties to fall to the floor. Kennedy was left completely naked.

“Now that’s much better, isn’t it?” said Willow. “_Dissolutum._”

Kennedy fell to the ground, her body suddenly hers again. “Willow—”

“Silence,” Willow hissed, and Kennedy could feel the force of a magical invocation behind it, keeping Kennedy from speaking. Willow made a gesture, and an invincible force knocked against Kennedy, forcing her to her knees. The witch’s black leather jeans suddenly unbuttoned and unzipped of their own accord, revealing that this Willow hadn’t been wearing any underwear. Willow slid her pants slightly farther down to allow more room for Kennedy to enter. “Now come on, dear. We’ve both done this more times than we can count. I know you know what to do.”

Kennedy didn’t move.

Willow only smiled. “_Het lijden door pijn en kwelling,_” she said, and suddenly the pain returned, flaming through her body, overwhelming all her thoughts. It lasted for several seconds, each moment more agonizing than the last, and then subsided.

Still, Kennedy didn’t move.

Willow’s dark smile only got bigger. “We both know that I can break you,” she said. “And we both know that I will enjoy it.”

The pain returned, only this time it didn’t subside. It just got worse and worse, never stopping. All concept of the outside world was eradicated from her mind, her thoughts narrowed to a mere two: the sheer horror of it, and the desire to stop it. She reached out, grabbed onto Willow’s waist, pulled her head in. As her tongue entered Willow, the pain subsided.

Passionless, defeated, Kennedy gave in, working her tongue into Willow, massaging it back and forth.

Willow grabbed her by the hair. “Come on, Ken. We both know you can do better than that.”

Kennedy continued, faster, trying to forget what was happening. She closed her eyes and moved her tongue with as much speed and power as she could manage, doing her best to get Willow to climax and end the ordeal.

“That’s better.” Her grip tightened, pulling at Kennedy’s hair. She simply ignored the pain and kept on going. She knew it was only a little longer.

Willow began to moan, her grip even tighter. Kennedy worked faster.

Then Willow let loose a sigh, and Kennedy knew it was over. Willow had orgasmed.

“Oh, I needed that,” she said, not loosening her grip on Kennedy’s hair. “And now I’ll return the favor.” With a wicked grin she flipped the knife in her other hand around and slipped the hilt between Kennedy’s legs. “I know you’ll enjoy this, slut.”

It slid in and out, working Kennedy as Kennedy’s tongue had just worked Willow. Kennedy rebelled against the excitement and arousement washing over her, hating herself for the pleasure she was feeling. Willow knew exactly what to do to make her feel each motion; to make each thrust of the knife hilt inside Kennedy cause the maximum satisfaction.

Kennedy was a Slayer, had super strength and super speed and super healing, and still she couldn’t keep from having an unwanted orgasm. The waves of pleasure grew stronger, distracting her. “Yes,” slipped from her lips, even though she was thinking no, no, no.

When had the silence compulsion been lifted? She tried to say something else, but found she couldn’t. Her train of thought dead-ended as the orgasm grew stronger and stronger, pushing all thoughts from her mind. When she climaxed, she screamed.

“You know what they say about rape,” Willow said. “It’s not about the pleasure; it’s about the power.”

And then Willow thrust the knife into Kennedy’s abdomen, and was gone.

* * * * *_  
_

_“Beyond words, beyond silence, Chaos I summon thee. Accept this sacrifice, and imbue me with your power."_

Ethan smiled as he said the words of invocation, holding the gagged and restrained form of a young woman in his hands. Here he was, more connected to Chaos than he had ever been, about to cast a spell of which he could only guess the magnitude. Ripper had gone out to see the West Indian girl again—what was her name? Alicia? Olive?—and so Ethan had the flat to himself during the ritual. Wouldn't Ripper be surprised, though, when he saw—well, whatever there would be to see when the spell had been cast.

He felt the power flow out of the girl and into him. Imbued with power, he stepped into the circle and began to chant. "Mother of the Nile, grace us with the magnitude of Your power, with the magnanimity of Your soul and with the magnificence of Your glory. Isis, Queen, release the ancient barriers which separate us from Your mercy.” He continued the spell, channeling through himself energies greater than any he had ever channeled before. They were strong magicks that he was invoking, and he had to struggle to keep control, to not lose himself in the sheer awesome power that—

Wait. It wasn’t October 1979. It was February 2004. And he wasn’t in London; he was in Brazil. And he had just gone to bed with the very nubile Miss Dawn Summers, the sister of the Slayer, after what he was absolutely sure had been the best sex the Key had ever had in her so far very short life as a human.

“Simple Simon went to look if plums grew on a thistle,” a lilting female voice interjected in a British accent he couldn’t quite place. “He pricked his fingers very much, which made poor Simon whistle.”

Ethan turned to see a slender dark-haired woman dressed in a diaphanous black gown with a red shawl wrapped around her shoulders. As if to demonstrate, she began to whistle a tune—“All Around the Mulberry Bush” if Ethan wasn’t mistaken. “Who are you?" he asked.

"The only one I could be," she answered, as if that were the only answer needed. "The others couldn't come, trapped as they are within their carcasses of dead flesh. The quick are less than useless. Only I can see beyond."

"Beyond what? What others?" Ethan asked, confused.

“The three who want to help, possessing that which we should not have. A man, to avenge a woman. Another man, for love of a woman. And myself, once a woman, for love of the men.”

“I don't understand," Ethan insisted. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Oh, you understand," the dark-haired woman corrected. “You don't comprehend.”

Ethan nodded, still not understanding. “I'm glad we've made that distinction.”

“Mother sings, and all her children come out to play. But Daddy's angry, and he's taking away all the presents.”

“Daddy? You mean Osiris?”

“Tin soldiers, all lined up,” she answered, as if it weren’t a complete non sequitor. _“Knock one down, they all fall. Such lovely toys, but such a horrid mess all over the floor. Grandmother would be cross. Mustn't have that, so I come to you. The pixies brought me, you know. Now you can tell Miss Muffet, and we can all have tea and cakes.”_

“Miss Muffet? I'm supposed to talk to a fictional character?” This was only getting crazier and crazier.

The woman shook her head. “Your lost little lamb, caught in the blackberry patch. Run and catch." She gestured towards the young woman he had drained earlier (earlier in 1979, he thought, still trying to keep straight when_ he was), in order to channel the energy necessary for the Rite of Isis, but when he turned to look at the unconscious girl the random blonde had been replaced by Dawn Summers, dressed in her Alice Liddell costume from so many years ago. (Or was it still years to go?) Curioiser and curiouser._

“What is it that I’m supposed to tell her? What does this all mean?” asked Ethan, the disciple of Chaos, trying desperately to find some order within this bedlam.

The enigmatic woman only smiled. “Just a pack of cards,” she said, and clapped her hands.

* * * * *

Ethan woke up with a start. That probably wasn’t the strangest dream he had ever had—between magic and hallucinogens, he had had some strange ones—but it definitely ranked up there. He wondered what had been rattling around in his subconscious to produce_ that_. And who _was_ that strange woman?

Wait. Ethan stopped and thought about it for a moment. _Release the ancient barriers which separate us from Your mercy. The gods will walk the Earth, the wine will be sweetened. Mother sings, and all her children come out to play. I will help you once I can; until then, My hands are tied. _

Suddenly, Ethan felt the color drain from his face as everything fell into place.

“Shit.” Even in his wildest dreams—well, the wild prophetic dream he had just had excepted—he hadn’t imagined it could be _that_ bad. And he had cast it once himself? Oh, the follies of youth.

Ethan turned to the form of Dawn Summers next to him in the bed, comfortably unconscious and naked beneath the blanket, and began to shake her.

“Dawn,” he said, as he saw her eyes open and stare at him groggily, “I know what the Rite of Isis does."


	13. Chapter 13

Dawn self-consciously exited the guest room that had been acting as Beth and Ethan’s to see a huddle of people gathered around Willow and Kennedy’s bedroom.

“What happened?” Dawn asked immediately, ignoring for the moment her concerns about propriety. Besides, they were all so intent on whatever it was that no one had seen which room she had come out of.

“It’s Kennedy,” Cordelia answered. “She’s injured. We were going to get you, but you weren’t in our room and then Althanea had it under control.”

“So she’s all right?”

Cordy shrugged. “She has a knife wound to the abdomen. I wouldn’t usually call that all right, but she’s a Slayer and she has one of the world’s most powerful healers working over her right now. She’ll be fine in a couple of days. Probably won’t even have a scar.”

“How’d it happen?”

Cordelia’s features darkened. “Willow.”

Dawn’s heart sunk into her stomach. How could any of them been so foolish as to leave Kennedy alone, relatively unprotected? Of course the dark version of Willow would attack her first. She should have at least have had a Wiccan on hand to stand guard.

Of course, how safe was anybody as long as Willow’s dark side was loose?

“I need to see Althanea,” Dawn said. “And you and Amy and everybody else, I guess. We know what the Rite of Isis does.”

Cordy nodded and quickly pushed aside the Wiccans who stood in the hall until she and Dawn managed to enter Kennedy’s bedroom. Althanea, Kelsenia, Amy, and Vaughne were already inside, and Ethan and Beth slipped in behind them. Kennedy lay naked on the ground.

“I said no one was to—” Althanea started, but broke off when she looked up and saw Dawn. “Oh, it’s you. Any news from the front?”

“People are dying,” Dawn said simply as she looked down at Kennedy’s prostrate form. Althanea and Kelsenia seemed to be cleaning the wound with some type of herbal mixture. “And we know what the Rite of Isis does. It removes the rules of noninterference for Higher Powers.”

Althanea visibly started so badly she almost dropped the rag she was holding in her hands. “You mean—”

Dawn nodded. “Every god or Power with an agenda is suddenly going to lose the obstacles which keep them from using humankind as their punching bags. Pandemonium.” She glanced back at Ethan. “Your patron should be happy.”

But Ethan shook his head. “Chaos holds within it the potential for creation. This is purely destructive.”

“Well, can we count on Hecate and Janus to help us out, then?”

This time it was Althanea who contradicted her. “Their influence is too subtle: butterfly-wings-flapping-in-Singapore type of stuff. Osiris will use brute force if his hands are untied.”

“Brute force above and beyond a vampiric army numbering in the hundred thousands?”

“Believe me, you don’t even want to know,” Ethan answered. Althanea and Amy gave dismal nods in agreement.

“Cordy?”

“I’m just a Higher Power,” Cordelia answered. “Don’t look at me. I won’t have anything near the power necessary to put down a god.”

“How about the other Powers?”

“There are beings of equal power on the other side,” Ethan pointed out. “For the most part, they should cancel each other out.”

“The good Willow?”

Vaughne answered. “I think she’s still communing or something. She’s not exactly one for shows of power; she claims they offset the harmony of the universe.”

Well, the harmony of the universe was going to be offset quite a bit if they couldn’t stop the Rite of Isis from being performed. “Did anyone think to suggest to her that maybe she should help us out anyway?”

“I tried,” Vaughne said. “All she did was quote the _Tao Te Ching_. ‘Through nonaction nothing is left undone.’”

Through nonaction they were all going to get killed. This was only getting worse. “Where’s a good hart’s blood dagger when you need one?” she muttered to herself.

It was Ethan who heard her. “Excuse me?”

“Pop culture reference, sorry. We need something which can kill a god.”

“Goddess only knows how that would throw off the balance,” Althanea said. “We need to contain Osiris, while still letting him act as a counter balance to the Light.”

It was then that Amy spoke up. “What about the other Willow? The one who did this?” She pointed to Kennedy’s once-grievous wound.

“Dropped to being our second priority. Dark Witch, bad. Dark God, worse.”

“Really?” a familiar voice said in a mock-whine. “I think I’m insulted.”

Dark-haired Willow entered the room, and Dawn could see how out in the hall the Wiccans had parted to let the witch through. Still, Vaughne’s crystal was glowing at a low-level intensity, so Dawn supposed the Wiccans were connected and prepared to act if the need arose.

“You dare to come back here after what you’ve done?” Althanea said, rising and gesturing towards Kennedy’s prostrate form.

“Why not?” Willow asked. “It’s my bedroom, after all. Or have all of you forgotten that you happen to be guests in my house?”

“Leave here,” Althanea ordered, in a voice which allowed no disagreement. The witch rose, and Dawn was struck with the force of Althanea’s confidence: the grey-haired witch showed no fear of Willow’s power, only an ageless grace.

“Well, you see, there’s a problem, Althanea,” Willow said, as she circled the group. “I want power—the type of power you gave me through Giles two years ago, that I had when I tried to end the world. I imagine that most of that power was yours, being the daughter of a goddess and all. And I want it. I don’t suppose that this time I’ll have to worry about it infecting me with your loathsome humanity. That part of me is gone now.”

Althanea didn’t back down. “True power is not something that can be taken by force, Willow. It lies within. ‘Those who master others have force; those who master themselves have strength.’ I taught you that, remember?”

“In that case,” Willow said, lunging for Althanea, “I’ll settle for the type of power which can blow stuff up.”

_"__Bернитесь_!” Althanea commanded, and Willow was thrown backwards. Dawn watched as the witch scrambled to her feet, her menacing composure momentarily discomforted, as she grabbed onto the closest thing to her.

Which just happened to be Kelsenia, Althanea’s niece. Surges of blue lightning raced from the girl’s chest and up Willow’s arms as she drained Kelsenia of her power.

“Enough!” Althanea said, and for the first time the composed gravitas was replaced with an all-too-real pained anger. “_Discedere!_”

Willow disappeared instantly, seemingly exploding in a cloud of dust. Dawn recognized the teleportation spell Althanea had used; she had even used it herself—although it had more or less knocked her unconscious each time she had attempted it. Even experienced witches found it extremely difficult, after all.

If it had fazed Althanea at all, however, she didn’t show it. She bent over her collapsed niece, who had fallen next to the wounded Kennedy.

“_Liefde bindt ons, uitvoeringen ons een,_” Althanea chanted, holding Kelsenia’s hand. “_Wat mijn was, is van de joue._ Come on, _chiya._” Kelsenia stirred, tossing lightly without regaining consciousness. “Thank the gods,” said Althanea after a long sigh of relief. “I stopped Willow before she could drain her completely.”

“How powerful will Willow be now?” asked Dawn, glad the girl would be okay but forced to focus on their immediate tactical situation.

“Senya’s only begun her training,” Althanea answered, “but she holds an enormous amount of potential. Willow, however, will be able to tap every drop of that power. I would fear the worst.”

Dawn nodded, glumly. She had been fearing the worst from the very beginning of this debacle, and somehow the worst kept on happening, her fears becoming reality. The only thing missing now was the Stay-Puft marshmallow-man.

And the only thing to do was to get back to work. She slipped away from the group into the bedroom she shared (at least in theory, after last night) with Cordelia, and opened a briefcase next to the bed. She stared at the contents for over a minute, then closed the briefcase and went back into the hall, where almost everybody was still gathered.

“The Rite of Isis,” Dawn said, in shock. “It’s gone.”

* * * * *

“The Rite of Isis,” Alexia said, staring in wonder at the parchment. “Do you have any idea how great a treasure this is?”

The young Wiccan shook her head.

“Let me put it this way. I can think of no greater gift you could bring us save for Willow Rosenberg’s head upon a plate.” The high priestess paused, as she studied the girl before her. “You would betray your goddess this way?”

“Hecate cannot protect us. She has said so Herself. My only hope now is to ally with Osiris.”

“A wise choice,” Alexia agreed. “He will not forget this service you have done us in His Name.” She ran her fingers lovingly over the parchment. “The last copy of the Rite known to us was destroyed in ’79, before you or I were even born. But now, our Dark Lord will at last walk free. And when He does, Rosenberg will die.”

Then, without warning, Alexia reached out and grabbed the girl’s arm. “Beyond life, beyond death, Darkness I summon thee.”


	14. Chapter 14

“Beyond life, beyond death, Darkness I summon thee. Accept this sacrifice, and imbue me with your power.” The Wiccan struggled, trying to resist, but Alexia simply flooded her with a wave of black magicks, wearing down her resistance as she attacked and corrupted the girl’s very soul. Alexia felt the power flowing out of the Wiccan and into her, similar to but not the same as Rack’s power-granting touch. Dropping the girl on the ground, Alexia stepped forward into a pentagram that was permanently etched into floor at the center of the temple.

“Mother of the Nile,” she invoked, reading from the parchment the young Wiccan had brought, “grace us with the magnitude of Your power, with the magnanimity of Your soul, and with the magnificence of Your glory. Isis, Queen, release the ancient barriers which separate us from Your mercy. . . .”

* * * * *

Amy concentrated in communion with the other Wiccans as Vaughne directed the spell.

“Goddess Hecate,” Vaughne invoked, “we are Your children.”

Yeah, thought Amy. Biologically in one instance—or as biological as one could get with an incorporeal Being. She was dying to ask Althanea just how she had been conceived and carried, but figured the elder witch would see that as an encroachment on personal matters.

“You are our mother,” Vaughne continued. “Reveal to us our sister who has gone astray, so that we may find her and work Your will.”

The energy channeled, Amy could feel the locator spell working, and in a moment a location shifted into the group’s collective consciousness. _Okay, Althanea,_ Amy could hear Vaughne think, _it’s your turn._

Amy could feel Althanea drawing on the group’s energy, preparing for the next step of the process. “_Discedere,_” she whispered, and Amy could feel the world shift around them as they quickly broke their connection to the material world and just as quickly reestablished it.

When she opened her eyes, they—all the Wiccans, as well as Dawn and Cordelia—were in a giant marble temple. Amy knew Dawn hadn’t been thrilled at the prospect of leaving Kennedy and Kelsenia with only Ethan and Beth, both of whom were morally ambiguous at best, to protect them from Willow, but had agreed that stopping the Rite of Isis had to demand as much of their resources as they could possibly spare.

“So that You, Goddess Isis, will bless Your children with the gift of Your presence—”

The high priestess of Osiris—Alexia, Althanea had said her name was—stood in the middle of a central pentagram, reading from what Amy recognized as the copy of the Rite of Isis that Dawn had received at Wolfram &amp; Hart. Which meant that the moment she finished, reality was going to begin going kablooey as the gods got down and dirty.

Obvious goal: make sure she didn’t finish. Amy stood up quickly, raced towards the central pentagram—and was thrown back instantly by an invisible force. Shit. _Of course_ the Temple of Osiris would have protective wards built into its very structure.

She glanced at Vaughne, then reached out with her mind reinstituting the circle between the Wiccans. Possibly with the power between them they might be able to penetrate the wards.

Dawn, on the other hand, had suddenly pulled a handgun out of her purse. Apparently deciding there was no time for the magical method, she fired it several times aimed at Alexia. The bullets traveled about half the distance to the high priestess, then hovered in the air for a moment, stopped by the wards, before falling to the ground. It was very _Matrix_-y.

Amy didn’t have much time to appreciate the artistry of the image, though, as she concentrated on piercing the wards. They were deep and they were strong, possibly hundreds of years old. And they were rooted in the darkest of black magicks.

“You will never stop the will of the god Osiris,” a young priest said as he made his way to them. “It shall be done.”

“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Dawn said as she turned the gun to face him.

He only laughed. “Do you really believe my life holds meaning in the greater scheme?”

In the center of the temple, Alexia seemed to be finishing the Rite. “In supplication, we have come to you, Goddess; in divine sovereignty, may Your will and that of Your children be done.”

And in that instant, the world went mad. It wasn’t completely obvious at first, but Amy could sense the changes occurring at the deepest levels of reality. The gods were free, and They weren’t about to wait to put Their omnipotence to work.

* * * * *

“It’s happened,” Beth said, but it wasn’t really necessary. Ethan could feel the way the world had shifted, changed, grown more chaotic in a single moment now, just as well as the blind seer. He didn’t see how _anyone_ with even an inkling of magical sensitivity could have failed to sense it.

The gods were free, and now the world belonged to them. The universal laws which they had all learned to trust were suddenly rescinded in favor of the caprice of divine beings.

Of course, gravity seemed to still be working—for the moment. Most of the gods’ desires, after all, would clash, and they could only hope the result would be some sort of equilibrium. Even now, he knew, Hecate and Janus were using Their powers to keep the Earth as close as possible to its former status quo. Already the changes he could notice were relatively minor—for example, the grey shirt he had been wearing had suddenly become a bright orange. He wondered which deity would care what color shirt he was wearing, but recognized that something so minor would be far beneath the concern of Hecate and Janus. They were busy making sure the entire human race wasn’t turned into Smurfs or anything of the sort.

A god of chaos and a goddess of witchcraft working together to preserve the natural order of the universe. It was the type of irony that a chaos mage could appreciate.

But the longer the Rite of Isis was in effect, the better the chances that some god would come up with some thing to do which would throw the Earth completely out of balance, upsetting the finely-tuned chaos he loved so much. Something that Janus and Hecate wouldn’t be able to stop.

So he prayed—not to Janus, who was busy at the time, but just hoped in general—that the others would be able to reverse the Rite of Isis before it was too late. And that Osiris didn’t wipe them all out with a single thought. With Janus and Hecate tied up counterbalancing the wills of thousand minor gods and Powers, there was really very little restraining the Dark God at the moment. Which made the future disturbingly bleak.

Ethan glanced over at Beth. “Any idea of whether they’ll make it through this?”

The boy turned, saying nothing. His blind eyes stared out at Ethan as if in reproach.

“No, of course not,” Ethan said at last. “They don’t tell you stuff like that.”

When the boy spoke, Ethan detected a very real fear in Beth’s voice—something he had never heard there before. Beth had always been so unruffled, confident in his knowledge of what was coming next. “They’re not telling me anything,” he said. “They don’t need me anymore, not with the Rite. It’s all gone, and I can’t see a damned thing.”

* * * * *

Cordelia could sense the way the world changed when the Rite of Isis was completed. Even more so, she could sense the changes triggered in herself. Instead of the more-or-less human body she had inhabited for the last few days, ever since she had incarnated, now her Higher Power-ness had come back into play, a nexus of energy brimming with power beneath her skin apparent to anyone who had the sensitivity to see beneath the surface. Not to mention she now emitted a quite visible glow even for those who lacked that sensitivity.

She walked towards the center of the Temple, cutting through the wards like a knife through butter. She glanced at Alexia, who was lying unconscious on the floor, but ignored the Osirian priestess, deciding she was no longer a threat. Instead, she called out so that her voice echoed through the Temple, and permeated even deeper into the Otherworld: “Osiris!”

In the center of the temple, above the pentagram, a vortex of power and wind begin to form—and within the vortex, the shape of a face began to form. Osiris.

“You dare to summon me, Power?”

“Oh, I think the time for due respect pretty much went out the window with the Rite of Isis,” Cordelia said, trying to convey more confidence than she felt. Chances of fooling the Dark God were low, but perhaps she could refrain from having the morale of Dawn or the Wiccans get any lower.

“A mere Higher Power thinks that she can stand up to a god?” Osiris boomed.

Cordy knew quite well that against Osiris she was hopelessly outmatched, but she knew also that she had no choice, not really. Hecate, Janus, and a small number of lesser gods and Powers allied with Them were busy keeping the world from going—perhaps literally—to Hell in a handbasket as the whims of various gods and Powers caused ever more deviations from the normal balances of the universe. _No one_ had the power free to deal with Osiris Himself. The best Cordy could hope would be to keep the Dark God distracted until Dawn or the Wiccans managed to find some way to reverse the Rite of Isis.

“I have had enough of your meddling, Power. You and your mortal allies, seeking to obstruct My will. This ends here.” A wave of death magicks emanated from the vortex, directed at Cordelia, Dawn, and the Wiccans. Cordelia instantly threw up the most potent shields she could manage, holding off a good deal of the magic, but she could tell it wasn’t enough. Her physical form disassociated as she threw the very core of her being into reinforcing the shields, but still the onslaught continued. The constant barrage of death magicks was quickly weakening her, and she knew it would not be long before they destroyed her completely. Instinctively, unwillingly, she retreated into herself, and she could hear the screams behind her—if _behind_ was a word that could really be applied in her incorporeal state—as the magic began to do its work.

_I’m sorry, Buffy,_ Cordelia silently thought as she prepared to meet oblivion. _I tried, Angel._ Then, suddenly and inexplicably, the onslaught of magic stopped. Cordelia could not help but give in to the temptation to use some of the last remainder of her power to view the temple, trying to discover what had happened to save her and the humans.

In the entrance to the Inner Sanctum stood a familiar black-haired woman with an angry look on her face.

“If anyone is going to be killing my friends,” Willow said, “it’s going to be me.”

* * * * *

Amy pulled herself to her feet as the sudden pain in her chest instantly abated and watched as Willow made her way to the center of the temple. “Do you truly think you can succeed where a Higher Power has failed, witch?” Osiris asked.

“If I’m looking for the latest gossip, I’ll go to Cordelia,” Willow said. “Otherwise, I never did find her good for all that much.”

“You have not begun to witness My wrath,” the god promised, and Amy could sense Him releasing another wave of dark magicks. Willow rose a hand, summoning shields to protect them all from it. Amy could feel Osiris strengthen the magicks, until even Willow was straining.

“You are merely mortal, girl. Soon you will learn the error of crossing a god.”

“Behold,” rang out Willow’s voice, “the man is become as one of Us, to know good and evil, and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.” Except her voice rang out from the opposite direction from which Willow now stood. Amy turned, to see the white-haired Willow now standing in front of Osiris as well.

The two Willows stood next to each other, each reaching out with their magic to restrain the Dark God Osiris, their wills for the moment united.

“Now!” shouted Dawn.

Amy nodded and reached out with her magic. “Let the spell be ended!” she shouted into the wind and the vortex. In an instant, where there had been two Willows there now stood only one, her hair a bright red.

“Gods and goddesses of above and below, I revoke your lease to walk this Earth,” the now-complete Willow incanted. “Return now to the worlds beyond this world, realms beyond this realm, to the seat of your power where no mortal may tread. Be at peace, and leave us to our destinies uninhibited.” She smiled at Osiris, a slightly sinister smile with the barest hint of Dark Willow still within it. “Thou hast no power here, Dark God. Abjure!”

And, without even a flash, it was ended. The vortex was closed; the wind stopped; Osiris was gone.

“Wow,” said Willow. “That was a rush.”


	15. Chapter 15

For a long moment, everyone present just stared at each other in a daze. Then, as it gradually began to sink in who exactly had won, various members of the Order of Osiris began to flee. Amy ignored them; individually, they were harmless.

Instead, she sent out her mind searching through the temple. “You can’t hide from me,” she said out loud, as she searched, hoping her voice would carry. Quickly, she found the nexus of energy she was looking for, the hodge-podge of stolen life forces fashioned together in a single parasite. Following her senses, she made her way to a door and opened it. There, sitting on a chair and looking up at her with a coolness behind his eyes, was Rack.

“You’ve come to kill me?” he asked. “Like your little dark friend, I suppose. Only now she’s locked up that part of her so deep we needed to use magic to get it out. Unlike you. You’re not afraid to use dark magicks, are you, Amy?”

No. She wasn’t.

He stood up, took a step towards Amy. “I have to admit, I underestimated you. So distracted by your friend Strawberry, with so much raw power, that I missed the true potential. Light and dark, together in a single witch. Vanilla and chocolate. You’ve matured, Amy. Beautiful.”

“And you,” Amy said, entering the room, “are still ugly.”

“So you’re going to kill me?”

“No,” said Amy. “I’m not Willow.” She walked up to him and raised her palm a mere six inches from his chest. “_Уберите все, что отделяет этого человека от смертных, которые идут эта Земля,_” she chanted, feeling the power drain out of him. When she was done, she turned towards the door.

“You should have killed me,” he called out to her.

Amy looked back at Rack, a smile on her lips. “I was sort of hoping you would say that.” She left the room, leaving him behind her, and reëntered the Inner Sanctum.

“What did you do to him?” Willow asked as Amy stepped up to the assembled group.

“Broke his connection to the magicks,” Amy answered. “He’s mortal now. Human. He’ll never again be able to feel magic in any form. Let _him_ experience what withdrawal feels like.”

Willow nodded. “Appropriate,” she agreed.

“And her?” Amy asked, looking down at the priestess’s unconscious form and fighting the urge to give it a good kick.

“Alexia? We’ll take her with us,” Althanea offered. “The coven can keep her safe, make sure she doesn’t cause any more destruction. If she can be rehabilitated, we will do that, but most likely . . . we will treat her well until the day Osiris claims His own.”

“The Staff of Toth,” Dawn instructed Vaughne, breaking into the silence. “Search this place until you find it. Then break it.”

Vaughne nodded and led a few of the other girls in looking for the staff. Amy glanced at Dawn, who was now just staring at the Inner Sanctum. Amy could guess what the girl was thinking: it was over. They had won the war. But then why did everybody just feel so damn empty?

* * * * *

Ethan and Beth were nowhere to be found when they returned to the house, although Dawn did finally find a letter left in what had been their bedroom.  
_  
Miss Summers:_

Beth and I are wanted fugitives, so now that the world is saved it didn’t quite make sense for us to wait around for Council representatives to arrive and take us into custody. We thank you for our freedom.

Chaos can be a hard path, as much as it seems—and often is the fact—that I treat it as mostly fun and games. I know that I will not be able to entreat you to indulge yourself again: the sin of temperance is one of the many curses of the Watcher. Nor would I want to stay, not really; you remind me of Rupert in far too many ways.

Chaos can be either fought against or embraced; the more chaotic option by far is it to fight it.

E.R.

Dawn read the letter, then folded it and slipped it into her handbag, making her way out of the bedroom. Quickly and silently she descended the staircase into the kitchen, where she found Kennedy sitting at the kitchen table, the large bandage wrapped around her waist mostly obscured by her shirt.

“How are you feeling?” Dawn asked.

“I’m getting stronger,” Kennedy answered. “It’s just . . . I can’t do it. I can’t just go on living as if. . . .”

“I understand,” Dawn said. “You’re going to move out?”

Kennedy nodded, glumly. “I’ll find a place somewhere nearby, so I’ll still be able to train the Slayers. I won’t let this interfere with my calling.”

“Kennedy, you were—”

“Dawn,” Kennedy interjected. “Don’t.”

Complying, Dawn said nothing. After a moment, Kennedy began to speak again.

“When I found out I was a potential Slayer, it was like the world turning upside down. I realized how dangerous the world really was, and just how vulnerable I was. I was six years old. And since then I’ve worked my ass off to be the best the Slayer I could be. When we all showed up at Buffy’s door, who was the best? I was. The fastest, the strongest, the best trained. And then I became a Slayer, and I knew the only time I ever had to fear anything was when there was a huge apocalyptic foe. Well, I suppose this time it was an apocalypse, but guess that the foe would be Willow? Never. As much as she told me, as much as I thought I understood her fear, I realize now I never really knew anything. And now I feel like I’m six years old and meeting my Watcher for the first time all over again.”

“You know that Willow would never really—”

“But she _did,_” Kennedy cut Dawn off. “You said it yourself, Dawn. That was Willow in there—her power and her passions. Only part of her, yes, but that means somewhere, deep down, there is a part of Willow who can do that to somebody. And I don’t know if I can live with that.”

Dawn nodded, knowing not to press any farther. “Don’t be afraid to take some time off. The Council will give you all the time you need.”

The Slayer shook her head. “I need this, Dawn. I need to be strong. Don’t take it away from me.”

“Whatever you think is best, Kennedy.” Dawn considered touching the Slayer, laying a reassuring hand on her shoulder, then decided against it. Silently, she left the kitchen, to find Willow and Althanea conversing in the living room.

“How is she?” Willow asked.

“Althanea is a good healer. Physically, she’ll be fine in a couple of days. Psychologically. . . .” She trailed off, not knowing the answer. Would the brash, confident Slayer the Council desperately needed ever be back?

Willow nodded, her head hung low. Dawn almost flinched. Kennedy’s bout of sullen reflection was bad enough. If Willow went back to the level of insecurity she had displayed that last year in Sunnydale, the Council would have lost its most valuable operative.

“Willow, what happened wasn’t your—”

“It was me, Dawn. She’s right: there’s some part of me which enjoyed what I did to Kennedy. _Enjoyed_ it!” Her voice rang out, much more obvious than she intended. Willow cast a shocked glance towards the kitchen and cringed.

Dawn continued more softly, but firmly. “It’s still not your fault. You didn’t lose control this time; you had it stolen from you. We all have our dark sides, Willow. Dark sides which, if freed, would drive any one of us to do horrible things.”

After all, if her own dark side managed to drive her to sleep with Ethan Rayne without the aid of the Staff of Toth, what would _Dawn_ turn into if it were truly let free?

“‘Good’ controlled Willow was pretty much just a big waste of space until you finally faced down Osiris together,” Dawn continued. “We don’t need a Willow who is in perfect control and communes with the universe. We need a complete Willow, one who knows power and isn’t afraid to use it but can _control_ that power. We need our dark sides; they’re part of who we are.”

Willow said nothing, but Althanea smiled. “You have learned a truly valuable lesson, my girl.”

Dawn frowned. It wasn’t a lesson she really wanted to learn, and she didn’t want to think how it could be applied to her.

So she changed the subject. “If Willow hadn’t drained Kelsenia,” she pointed out to Althanea, “she wouldn’t have had the power to stand against Osiris. You knew that, and brought her here.”

Althanea shook her head. “I am no seer, child. I knew _nothing_. I only feared the sacrifice I would have to make.”

Dawn didn’t say anything for a moment. She didn’t know what scared her more: the fact that one day she would have to make such a sacrifice, or the knowledge that, when that day came, she would be able to do it.

* * * * *  
__

_You have done well, child. _

Cordelia supposed that she shouldn’t feel patronized that the goddess Hecate called her “child.” After all, it wasn’t condescension so much if She actually was insanely more powerful than Cordelia. But still, she was a Higher Power! Didn’t that count for something?

If recent events were any guide, not much. “It’s not as if I did any good,” she complained. “I was of exactly zero usefulness.”

_What did you expect?_ Hecate asked. _Each of those whom you once called friend has her own path that she must find. You know quite well that you cannot interfere with free will._

“Then you knew I wouldn’t be able to do any good,” Cordelia accused.

_Even My omniscience does not extend that far,_ Hecate contradicted. _Fate works in mysterious ways, even to a god. Your presence could have influenced events in an infinitude of subtle ways. Why do you think I allowed you to incarnate?_

“Is this one of those butterfly-storm Ashton Kutcher things? Because I never really got all that no matter how many times Xander or Willow tried to explain.”

_You are young yet, Cordelia. You have all Eternity to learn the mysteries of the universe. For now, be glad that your friends are safe, and that the apocalypse has been averted . . . for the moment._

Suddenly, Cordelia felt like Eternity was going to be a long, long time.

* * * * *

What had once been the administrative headquarters for a full-out Slayer war was now an empty house. Amy and the Wiccans had returned to the United States using Angel’s jet. Ethan and Beth had slipped away. Althanea had teleported the priestess Alexia to Devonshire, and now she and Kelsenia were on a commercial aircraft traveling back themselves. The Slayers, too, had dispersed back to the ends of the Earth from which they came. Kennedy had already moved out and was staying with one of her Slayers until she could find a new place. Cordelia hadn’t been seen since the final showdown between Willow and Osiris—the assumption was that she had re-ascended and was busy being a Higher Power again.

So Dawn was alone with Willow now, making preparations for her own return back to Italy. She had shipped her handgun, knowing she wouldn’t be allowed to take it on a plane. Now all she had to do was relax until she had to leave for the airport later that afternoon. She leaned back and closed her eyes. Relaxation wasn’t something of which she had been capable for the last few days.

She let the stress fall from her body, and let her thoughts wander as they would. Blissfully, her mind was empty. She sat there, finally feeling restful, when the doorbell rang.

She rose to answer the door, wondering who it could be. For the last few days, the house had been a center of activity, but now that was over and silence reigned. Who would be visiting Willow?

“Oh, shit,” Dawn said as she peered through the peephole and saw who was on the other side of the door.

It was Buffy and Giles.


	16. with Epilogue

Dawn let Giles and her sister into Willow’s house, disheartened by the stern looks on their faces.  
They entered the house, and Dawn cast around desperately for something to say. “Please, have a seat,” was all she could manage. “Do you want me to get Willow?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Giles said, sitting down on the sofa. Buffy sat next to him. “Please sit down.”

She sat in an armchair across from the sofa, her heart sinking.

Giles paused, then continued. “The ring you wear,” he said, gesturing to Dawn’s right hand, “represents a sacred duty between Watcher and Slayer. As you know, not all Watchers choose to wear the Ring of Ouroboros. I do not. But every Watcher shares in the responsibility it represents. It is a Watcher’s obligation to protect the Slayer, to guide and to help her to keep the world safe.”

And Dawn had failed. “I know,” she said weakly.

“In the past few days,” Giles said, “you have gone behind my and your sister’s backs, left the continent without our knowledge, and liberated from detention individuals known both to the Council and to you personally to be dangerous. You have played general in a war, sending hundreds of Slayers into battle, many to their deaths. Willow went dark, and a powerful magical rite fell into enemy hands. Do you deny any of this?”

“No.” Dawn shook her head, then fingered her ring, preparing to take it off. It was somewhat of a relief, actually. Never again would she be allowed to make the types of mistakes she had made, to fail so spectacularly. She would never have to march girls into battle again.

“Your sister and I have discussed what type of response this sort of behavior demands,” Giles said. “And we have come to an agreement. It is our plan to recommend to the Council that you be elevated to the position of High Watcher.”

Dawn was glad Giles had made sure she had been sitting. For a moment she just stared at him in shock. “You’re going to . . . promote me?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes.” Giles paused. “As you may know, consensus is not something which is easily achieved on the High Council. Roger Wyndam-Pryce and Lydia Chalmers invited me to join them in restructuring the High Council somewhat out of necessity—I held the trust, for the most part, of the largest group—really the only group—of known Slayers. However, in general, these Slayers are loyal to Buffy, not to the Council, a fact which annoys Roger and Lydia to no end. In order to encourage, ahem, _cooperation_ with the Council, they are therefore willing to make certain concessions, including allowing our contingent to exert greater influence on the High Council. The hope is that by doing so they can engender trust in the Council amongst the Slayers, and thereby defuse the possibility of any type of split between Buffy and the Council.”

Dawn nodded to indicate she understood. The Council was playing their typical power games. But why choose her?

“The one thing they refuse to consider, however, is permitting a Slayer to serve on the High Council. On this point, they are steadfast: the distinction between Watcher and Slayer must be maintained. Your sister and I had already considered your name as a potential High Watcher candidate, but we were uncertain how you would act in a large-scale leadership rôle. Obviously, that is no longer a worry.”

Dawn struggled to regain her voice. “But . . . but people _died._”

Giles nodded. “And more will die in the future, every one of them lying upon your conscience. If you didn’t question your ability to perform the job, then I would, Dawn. It pains me to have to lay this burden at your feet. But, in the end, I have no choice.”

“What about Willow? Xander?”

“Willow is far too powerful for us to hope for ever achieving a balance of power were she on the High Council. As for Xander . . . well, his talents lie in other directions. _You_ are the one who has demonstrated that she can be trusted to do what needs to be done, no matter the consequences. Ultimately, you are the only one to whom we can entrust this responsibility.”

Dawn nodded to show she understood. “What’s going to happen now?”

“You’ll return to Italy with your sister,” Giles answered. “You will be able to perform most of your duties just as well from Rome. We will see about getting you your own Slayer to train as soon as possible.”

It was then that Dawn realized that Buffy hadn’t said a word the entire conversation. “Buffy?” she asked.

“Come on,” said Buffy. “Let’s go home.”

* * * * *  
__

_Are You satisfied with Yourself now, Osiris?_ Hecate asked.

_Well, I was right, was I not?_ Osiris answered, _The Rosenberg girl is a danger to us._

Hecate had to pause to be sure She understood Osiris correctly. _You feel_ vindicated _by recent events?_ She asked at last, aghast.

_I told You the girl was a danger,_ Osiris repeated. _But no one paid any attention to Me._

Hecate took hold of Herself for a moment, pausing before She said anything She might regret later. _You declared war on the Slayer line,_ She said. _You amassed an army of undead creatures. One of Your worshippers cast the Rite of Isis, causing the natural balance of the universe to spiral out of control. And You walk away convinced that You were right, because a girl stood up to You?_

_I don’t know why You are surprised, Hecate,_ Janus’ Voice wafted through the Otherworld, joining the two other deities. _Osiris has always shown He thinks solely in terms of power. If someone else has it, He sees it as a threat—even if it’s just a human girl doing what it is necessary to save the world._

A human girl with powers beyond any that a human should have, Osiris insisted. _You know what she did last year. This only underscores the importance of dealing with her now, before she gets any more powerful._

She stood up to You for a few moments, just long enough time to reverse the Rite of Isis, Hecate reminded Him. _She’s hardly a goddess in her own right._

Not yet, added Janus. _She may yet join Our hallowed pantheon. A fate which Osiris seems to consider an unthinkable travesty. I wonder what He would be thinking if the Rosenberg girl had not been here last year to beat back the First Evil._

_We have had these arguments, Janus,_ Hecate pointed out. _I doubt We will achieve anything new from hashing them out yet again._

If Janus’ two faces were corporeal within the Otherworld, He would have nodded in agreement. _Too very true, Hecate. If Osiris continues to attempt these half-baked schemes, however, I fully expect We will be having them again._

* * * * *  
__

_Madelyn Summers slipped into 1979 and made her way to October. Arriving at the destination she wanted, she found it to be, as she had expected, total pandemonium._

“Ethan, Ethan, Ethan,” she said, looking at the unconscious form of the chaos mage as he lay next to an unknown blonde. “You always were a fool, you know that? And the rest of us have to clean up your messes.”

She knelt down and pried a crocodile-god off of Ethan’s insensible form “Not yet, Ahemait,” she chided the creature. “This is the land of the living.”

Of course, since Ethan had foolishly cast the Rite of Isis, many gods had begun to overstep their bounds, free of the restrictions which had held them. Oh well. The quicker she made things right the better.

“Gods and goddesses of above and below, I revoke your lease to walk this Earth,” she incanted. “Return now to the worlds beyond this world, realms beyond this realm, to the seat of your power where no mortal may tread. Be at peace, and leave these men and women to their destinies uninhibited.”

She gave Ahemait a gentle kick. “Come on, get back where you belong.”

And the world was made right again. For the moment.

 

**Epilogue**

Back in Rome, Dawn made her way out of her math class as other students traversed the high-school campus. She made her way towards one particular classmate. “Beatrice!” Dawn called out.

The Italian girl turned around. “_Sì?_”

Dawn stepped closer, lowered her voice. “Have you noticed anything, you know, strange lately? In the last year?”

Beatrice looked confused. “Dawn, what is this? I do not understand.”

“Things like suddenly becoming inexplicably stronger. I mean, really strong. And flexible. Wounds heal faster than they are supposed to. And the dreams—dreams of women, and of fantastic creatures, and maybe even of things that might have come true later.”

“_Madre de Dio,_” Beatrice swore. She looked both ways, checking to see if anyone was watching or listening. “How do you know these things? _È molto strano._”

“Well you see,” Dawn said, “into every generation a Slayer is born. . . .”


End file.
